The Tavern

Player species Imp. Main feature is permanent teleportitis and a blink intrinsic, also little, demonic, assorted resistances/immunities, regen 1, shoutitis. See detailed list below.

Code is available at https://gitlab.com/TomConrad/crawl-playable-imps/commits/master .

This comes from my son Tom, who thought a playable imp would be fun and took it upon himself to put it together. There was a proposal for imps some time back on GDD but this one is different.

We've playtested some and they're fun if you can stand the teleportitis (which is kinda the point). It makes for an interesting challenge https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15358 and sets the species apart in gameplay. You will get yoinked into hairy situations sooner or later.

Suggestions and comments are welcome. Tom doesn't actually know C++ (and neither do I) so some things might be out of his reach.

Innate Abilities, Weirdnesss & Mutations

Teleportitis 2
Shoutitis 3
Blink 2
Regen 1
Little
-20% HP
Immune to poison
Immune to negative energy
Immune to pain and torment
rF+ and rC- at XL 7
Permaflight at XL 14

Aptitudes

Melee:
Fighting +2
Short Blades 0
Long Blades 0
Axes -2
Maces & Flails +1
Polearms +2
Staves -1
Unarmed Combat 0

Ranged:
Bows -2
Crossbows -2
Throwing +1
Slings +1

Defense:
Armour -2
Dodging +3
Shields -2

Magic:
Spellcasting -1
Conjurations -1
Hexes +1
Charms -1
Summonings +1
Necromancy 0
Translocations +2
Transmutations -1
Fire Magic +2
Ice Magic -2
Air Magic -1
Earth Magic -2
Poison Magic -1

Other:
Invocations +1
Evocations 0
Stealth +2

Can't comment on the content, but working on things with your children is extremely adorable and I salute you for it.

I got my Imp to XL 5 (it's still alive) and liked the species, it looks pretty powerful as long as you are lucky with teleports. Blinking which costs HP combines well with fast regeneration while hunger does indeed limit kiting, you cannot blink and shoot unlimitedly.

Small race with their best weapon apt (+2) being polearms.... that's so evil.

It sounds like a fun species. Especially if you add berserkitis to go with shoutitis and teleportitis.

xentronium wrote:It sounds like a fun species. Especially if you add berserkitis to go with shoutitis and teleportitis.

No, berserkitis is not fun for me, it leads to unavoidable deaths.

Maybe if would be funny if the shouting used the same generation than (monster) demon insults do to differentiate it a bit from the regular shouting mutation.

Poison immunity should probably just be resistance. There are already enough races with rPois+ and rN IMO

It also sounds wrong to have a demon casting lichform (to me), maybe they could get some restrictions to necromancy much like undead.

Maybe they could also get some sort of mutation susceptibility, being twisted beings at all (and for fun). For every mutation they get the have a 50% chance to gain an additional mutation.

Another thing could maybe have different kind of imps develop, much like Draconians (crimson, ice, etc...) but this would be of course non-trivial to implement

Sandman25 wrote:No, berserkitis is not fun for me, it leads to unavoidable deaths.

And teleportitis doesn't?

xentronium wrote:
Sandman25 wrote:No, berserkitis is not fun for me, it leads to unavoidable deaths.

And teleportitis doesn't?

Less so than berserkitis, imo. I've had many characters survive with a cursed tele ring on for many floors; It still allows you to run away from fights.

Berserkitis allows you to do only 2 things - melee and move (and you are slowed after it ends). Teleportitis does not limit your character in any way. You can still be stealthy, cast spells, use scrolls, potions, divine abilities etc. I like teleportitis, it does not lead to unavoidable deaths.
With berserkitis you would have to always be hungry or below, it is not fun for me.

Any chance of this being added to a server as an experimental branch?

Also wanted to add.

Maybe for extended having both rTorment and Dispel Undead resistance could be over the top.

Maybe the flavour could be changed to "Exiled Demon", a demon that has spent so much time far from the Hells that it has lost the usual demonic intrinsics (rPois, rN, SInv and is back for vengeance). Some of the demonic characteristics (rF+ rC- blinkitis ranks) do start showing up as they get closer to the Hells

Pereza0 wrote:Also wanted to add.

Maybe for extended having both rTorment and Dispel Undead resistance could be over the top.

Maybe the flavour could be changed to "Exiled Demon", a demon that has spent so much time far from the Hells that it has lost the usual demonic intrinsics (rPois, rN, SInv and is back for vengeance). Some of the demonic characteristics (rF+ rC- blinkitis ranks) do start showing up as they get closer to the Hells

imho rHellfire- (-20% hp) is still pretty significant in extended

well, rEverything-, but we're talking about extended-specific threats

not sure 'exiled demon' has much of a space that 'demonspawn' doesn't already cover, and it's good for species to show their distinctiveness as soon as possible, if at all possible

Shoutitis 3

Stealth +2

Lol. Sounds like a fun race though.

had an argument about this on IRC just now, so will bring it to the thread for others to discuss:

should this race have a special interaction with stasis & -tele items, or should they behave normally?

tedric wrote:Any chance of this being added to a server as an experimental branch?

I added a patch-issue to Mantis to maybe smooth the way for this. (If there's something else I can do in this regard, let me know.)

To those providing feedback, thanks.

Blobbo, hope for an early trident.

An early trident would be nice, but the point is you can't end up using glaives/bardiches, so ultimately your polearm choices are going to be pretty weak. I don't know the exact restrictions offhand, I think you can use a demon trident as a two handed weapon, not sure. Little means they are the same size as spriggans? Are they also blocked from using gloves/boots like spriggans are? With all of the weapon restrictions that little has, and a 0 UC aptitude, I'd argue the race is fairly heavily pushed towards unarmed combat (if you are playing melee, which seems like a risky choice). I have no problem with this, I love unarmed, but it's something you might want to ask if this is intended/good design.

Chequers, that was on purpose.

PleasingFungus, I did get an amulet of stasis once when testing. It made a big difference of course. I eventually took it off partly for fun and partly because I wanted blink available.

Right now I think -Tele doesn't need special handling, The upside of no tele is bigger, but giving up voluntary tele and blink is still a big deal. Maybe you'd want it more in places like Depths, but maybe it's OK to have then if you're willing to take the minuses. Don't feel strongly about this.

Tasonir, Imps are restricted like spriggans in their slots. You can swing a demon trident 2H and a demon whip with a buckler. Little devils with pitchforks and whips was the thinking here. A bias toward UC was not by design. It's 0 because that was a nice neutral number, maybe 0 is too good.

Tossed this up on a branch, so people who are of a mood can set it up (the cbro admin has set up experimental branches for a lot of species like this). Also added a tiny cosmetic tweak.

This appears to be a red imp, based on the resistances and elemental magic aptitudes, but red imps aren't the only type of imps in the game. Why do player imps have to be inherently fire-aligned?

Also, isn't it generally frowned upon to have an effect that adds a downside to leveling up? rC- suddenly appearing at level 7 could cause some annoying and possibly spoilery scenarios.

PleasingFungus wrote:Tossed this up on a branch, so people who are of a mood can set it up (the cbro admin has set up experimental branches for a lot of species like this). Also added a tiny cosmetic tweak.

I went on a CBRO updating spree and added this. Sounds neat!

fyi, all cbro experimental branches are tracked via pseudo-tourney-script magic -> http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/experim ... nches.html

so it makes it convenient to see all the games together. Devs with CBRO-rebuild power can rebuild just like any other branch.

Enjoy!

Probably Imp should not be able to learn Control Teleport. I have 36 MP and level 4 spells are hungerless for me so I always have the spell active.

Edit. Oops, Control Tele does not allow to control the intrinsic teleport so I guess it is ok and should not be changed.

What if Imps didn't regenerate health when wearing Stasis? Or constantly lose health at about the same rate as regen? It burns!

Stasis disallows haste and blink, I'm not sure it's necessary to special-case it. You need to find it first, anyway.

The species is really challenging in Vaults and especially in Depths. Even with AC 24/EV 48/RMsl/Simulacrum/Animate Dead/Regeneration amulet/Regeneration spell I cannot fight all those Titans and Tengu Reavers in a never ending battle...

I found the species incredibly challenging but by far the best new experimental species. Its right up there with felid. I would imagine if I found stasis I think it would have been far easier. I'm not even sure if the amulet will work but I assumed it would.

Assuming the amulet does work my biggest gripe with the species is that it is far more luck based then other species. Hi scores for the species are probably going to be based on when you get the stasis amulet because rnd*tele uses quite a bit of resources and turns early on (healing or re-teleing etc). I was in a ice cave and it took me close to 40 times to get to the exit/loot because I didn't have dig and the path planning (ie "o" and "X") would get confused with the ice clouds. Basically levels where you have only one exit and are winding like ice cave are really annoying. I had a lab generated but I knew it would be a nightmare of tedium so I didn't do it.

The yelling is hilarious. I feel incredibly stupid to admit I picked dith as a god and couldn't figure out why the hell things would suddenly wakeup. Regardless dith was still a good god given the constant rnd*tele.

I had an exceedingly hairy but exciting shoals 5 and spider 5. I am pretty sure if I had snake and swamp it would have been far easier as blinking would have been more effective (blinking in shoals and spider does crap because the monsters have range and move fast).

I think stasis and -Tele items should not block the intrinsic teleports otherwise it becomes too similar to Formicid and depends on RNG too much. Control Teleport spell already does not allow to control the intrinsic teleports.
Intrinsic blinking helps a lot but probably adding an intrinsic teleport (with success chance depending on XL) would make the species even better (I used my ring of teleportation a lot and still almost ran out of teleport scrolls/wands).

I think stasis and -Tele items should not block the intrinsic teleports otherwise it becomes too similar to Formicid and depends on RNG too much. Control Teleport spell already does not allow to control the intrinsic teleports.

I agree. At a certain level rnd*tele mutation should kick in whereby you can also teleport as an ability. This alleviates streak killing 2 turn deaths on d1 and the unfair advantage of finding an amulet of stasis early.

I haven't played this species yet (looking forward to it!), but as far as theory-crafting goes, maybe something like the following would work:

Teleportitis
Shoutitis
Innate blink ability (relatively low failure rate, low MP cost)
Innate self-teleport ability (relatively high failure rate, moderate MP cost, incurs some glow)

Your innate translocation effects are flavored as being "unalterably chaotic," and thus are not subject to any limitation or control, be it cTele, -Tele, Stasis, dimensional anchor, etc. (The other prohibitions of stasis still apply, including to non-racial elective translocations via spell, evocation, ?teleportation, etc.)

To emphasize that the innate abilities are different from other, functionally similar translocation effects, it might be a good idea to give them a different name than just "blink" or "teleport." (Which might also add some flavor.)

A quick remark. Tom was toying around with adding an intrinsic teleport ability. I talked him out of it on grounds that people were winning without it, but it seems to be an intuitive extra that might make the species a little easier. (I find it quite challenging myself, only made it to Vaults once, but also I am probably playing too sloppy).

Also I don't think the species should be about hoping to find stasis early. If that's how it's working out in practice then I'd agree stasis/-Tele should be handled specially on Imps.

I started a ImHu before the tournament, and came back to it. Won the other day. http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... 014703.txt

Teleportitis had its up sides, namely when I was in real trouble, but I would say a lot more negatives, most of which weren't of the dangerous variety, but more pure annoyance, particularly for autoexplore with no -Tele. The innate blink on the other hand was quite strong, it is always nice to have a convenient escape button when you get surrounded due to a guardian serpent or draconian shifter. I never did find ammy of stasis, but did end up using a -Tele ring for part of Depths, V:5 and Zot. While I commend your son for programming this up, I can't say that this species was particularly interesting or fun, and I would not recommend it's addition to the game.

What if the blink and teleportitis was only when in view of threatening monsters? That was at least it's not such an autoexplore screw.

nilsbloodaxe wrote:I never did find ammy of stasis, but did end up using a -Tele ring for part of Depths, V:5 and Zot. While I commend your son for programming this up, I can't say that this species was particularly interesting or fun, and I would not recommend it's addition to the game.

Of course it was not fun, you were playing a normal character with huge EV at this point. Try it without stasis/-Tele. The whole point of the species is that you should be ready for random teleports and cannot restore HP/MP by usual retreat tactics.

Sandman25 wrote:
nilsbloodaxe wrote:I never did find ammy of stasis, but did end up using a -Tele ring for part of Depths, V:5 and Zot. While I commend your son for programming this up, I can't say that this species was particularly interesting or fun, and I would not recommend it's addition to the game.

Of course it was not fun, you were playing a normal character with huge EV at this point. Try it without stasis/-Tele. The whole point of the species is that you should be ready for random teleports and cannot restore HP/MP by usual retreat tactics.

And I did play that way for the vast majority of the game, and it really didn't add much to the experience.

nilsbloodaxe wrote:And I did play that way for the vast majority of the game, and it really didn't add much to the experience.

I avoided Vaults 5 because of that way and also had the most exciting Zot 5 for my 2 years "career". I realize it is not fun to teleport around when you are fighting popcorn or autotravelling so you experienced bad aspects of the species but didn't experience the good ones, that's why I suggest you to try again. I guess you also were putting the -Tele item on when you were low on HP with no monsters in LoS, for me it was pretty unusual to decide if I should move to stairs while low on HP or "stay and pray"

Sometimes I was even using potions of HW with no monsters in LoS.

Sandman25 wrote:
nilsbloodaxe wrote:And I did play that way for the vast majority of the game, and it really didn't add much to the experience.

I avoided Vaults 5 because of that way and also had the most exciting Zot 5 for my 2 years "career". I realize it is not fun to teleport around when you are fighting popcorn or autotravelling so you experienced bad aspects of the species but didn't experience the good ones, that's why I suggest you to try again. I guess you also were putting the -Tele item on when you were low on HP with no monsters in LoS, for me it was pretty unusual to decide if I should move to stairs while low on HP or "stay and pray" Sometimes I was even using potions of HW with no monsters in LoS.

Meh, I've won with Xom a few times now, and it's pretty much the same thing on Z:5. This Z:5 was annoying for a totally different reason (both lungs blocked by Zot traps, so I had to use blink to get in).

The Tavern

New Species: Imp (playable implementation)

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