Buff certain Draconian colors.


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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 19:21

Buff certain Draconian colors.

After playing through a bunch of draconians, it's obvious some colors are better than others. This would be okay, were the discrepancy not so huge. I've tiered each of the nine colors and talked about improvements that can be made after the list.

Amazing
- Pale: Probably the best. They get steam clouds, which deal lots of damage to fast, evasive lair threats like spiny frogs and mambas, allowing the player to soften them up and often times straight up kill them before they get into melee range. They are also useful well into the endgame and even extended thanks to them blocking line of sight.
- Red: Fire resistance and a breath weapon that's essentially the equivalent of Bolt of Fire and Conjure Flame mixed into one, only the Conjure Flame can actually be placed on an enemy tile. Even more effective than steam clouds at killing things due to the fact that flame clouds will not move, however the player has to get in close for this to work. As with Conjure Flame, lair-strength enemies will not try to cross, making it useful for escapes or separating one creature from a pack if you're being chased (since it can be placed on a monster).
- Green: A bolt version of Mephitic Cloud. Mephitic cloud is amazing at crowd control and a confused enemy is obviously rendered much less dangerous. Its range lets you pick your battles very easily as well as retreat if you turn a corner and see something you don't like. Assuming that it works exactly like mephitic cloud, it should still be somewhat useful even at later stages of the game, since 15 HD enemies still have over a 1/4th chance to become confused each turn. Unlike the above two breaths, it's ineffective against hydras, which is annoying but hardly a deal breaker.

Good
- Mottled: Sticky flame breath, which essentially the same as activating fire breath at point blank range, only it hits multiple targets and still does damage if you decide to run. Not amazing as the above three because it lacks a ranged use but still a very nice option to have.
- Grey: A flat 5 AC as well as rDrown and the ability to use physical options effectively in water. Five AC alone makes this a decent catch.
- Purple: Gets a rather poor breath weapon for purposes of straight up killing things. The secondary effects do not make up for it regardless of where in the game the player is, because the damn thing misses so much. Regardless of the dubious usefulness of dispel breath, Purple gets what I believe are all around the best aptitude changes and of course they also get a shit ton of MR, which is an objectively useful property in everywhere but a select few branches. That's why this is still a good color.

Okay:
- Black gets what appears to be a less powerful disc of storms that can't hurt the player. They also get slotless flight (permanent at 14), which is the only thing that makes this race "Okay". On paper black draconian breath circumvents the inaccuracy of its breath weapon by being able to target the same tile multiple times. In practice it still misses the target a lot thanks to hitting randomly and possibly missing tiles entirely.

Bad:
- Yellow gets corrosion breath, which is useful against high AC opponents, but that assumes you can actually hit with the damn thing. At higher levels they get the acidic saliva which allows the player to corrode enemies in melee, but this doesn't come until level 14, when the hardest parts of the game have already passed.
- White: Gets the ability to get mauled to death by ice beasts at a slower rate than normal. Ice breath ignores AC, but as the above, it doesn't ignore EV.

While they are already underwhelming compared to the breath weapons of higher-tiered Draconians, Purple, Black, Yellow, and White Draconian breath weapons have an additional problem that I highlighted four times already: they can all miss, and they do, very often. If I want to soften up a warlord with my corrosive breath, it certainly helps if it doesn't miss, still giving my position away and decreasing the distance between the two of us. I might as well have done anything else. You would think something a race was born with wouldn't be so useless when it's time to shine. Dispel breath is a weapon that should be a good option all game, but is frustratingly less useful than it should be thanks to how inoften it actually hits.

In comparison, steam, fire, and mephitic clouds can't miss, they can only fail to generate by ability failure. They will hit the target 100% of the time (steam clouds can fail to place on the target, but they will still hit 100% of the time if the target is in in one).

The other breath weapons should be buffed accordingly. I propose that Draconian breath weapons should never miss. This may buff fire breath a little too much, but this makes lightning breath very strong and of course dispel breath will be able to reliably accomplish what it was supposed to in the first place.

Corrosive breath and ice breath still seem weak in comparison, so I also propose that ice breath become iceblast breath, but stronger, unable to hurt the player, and only fire-able at point blank range. Basically it explodes 3x3 centered on one of the eight adjacent tiles. Corrosive breath can grow stronger at level 14 to further destroy enemy AC, at a rate far greater than a wand of acid. It's supposed to weaken armored targets so it should be able to do just that.
Last edited by PowerOfKaishin on Monday, 11th July 2016, 19:46, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 19:32

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

You consider mottled, purple and grey good, we simply cannot coexist in the same dimension.
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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 19:45

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

dynast wrote:You consider mottled, purple and grey good, we simply cannot coexist in the same dimension.


You know I half-expected an answer like this and am disappointed in you none-the-less.

Yes, I consider 5 AC and bonuses to MR better than some silly breath weapons. Mottled might be wrongly tiered, but I believe I made my point clear regardless.

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Shoals Surfer

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 20:00

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

I agree with OP's list except that I would swap mottled with white.

-Mottled is the worst colour by a landslide. Sticky flame breath is halfway decent when you first get it but it has shaky accuracy and being adjecent to more than one enemy is obvously worse than terrorism just like with axes Image; it becomes obsolete very quickly and then you are left with a measly +1 in fire magic. And yay, napalm resist for the 0.1% of monsters that are able to cast sticky flame on you! Basically a gutted version of red...

-White is decent, rC+ is nice because it suppresses your innate ectothermy and I'm one of the few crazy people that considers cold damage a lot more trouble than fire damage (except oof). Breath ignores AC and deals decent damage (the pushback of flying enemies is largely irrelevant though). +2 in ice magic is very good because ice has good spells across the board.
Last edited by removeelyvilon on Monday, 11th July 2016, 20:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 20:06

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

White has the highest ice apt in the game, suck it, elves. My point is that everyone have their own opinions on which colors are the best, with the predominant ones being red and green for obvious reason. Only one thing is certain, those colors are not going to change.
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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 20:19

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

green is nowhere near as good as red or pale

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 20:37

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

I was biased towards early ga-****, no, this is off-topic. Stop it duvy or minmay or whoever the hell you are because I sure as shit can't tell.

If mottled really is the worst then maybe it should be replaced with a black draconian evolution. Combined with my other proposition, I would give it a perfectly accurate breath of draining as well as a significant intrinsic stealth bonus (plus stealth and necromancy apt bonuses). I could definitely get behind that. Could any of you?

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 20:54

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Yes.
You shall never see my color again.

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 21:05

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Why not just make mottled never miss?

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 21:49

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Sar wrote:Why not just make mottled never miss?

It would still be worse than red, so it needs something more.

Sar

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 21:54

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

I dunno, I really like Sticky Flame spell...

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Post Monday, 11th July 2016, 23:03

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Well, when you are a spellcaster trying to maximize your damage per mp and constantly kiting to recover it, sticky flame is the tits. When you are a badass draconian with a battle axe sticky flame is just... meh. You could just make draconian sticky flame ranged.
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Post Tuesday, 12th July 2016, 02:13

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Sar wrote:Why not just make mottled never miss?


Because there are three other shitty colors that also need to not miss. And then consistency so every breath would have to not miss.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Tuesday, 12th July 2016, 03:15

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

- Black gets what appears to be a less powerful disc of storms that can't hurt the player.


I have definitely killed myself on at least one occasion with black draconian breath.

Tomb Titivator

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Post Tuesday, 12th July 2016, 03:22

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Slotless flight (black) really isn't useful.

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Post Wednesday, 13th July 2016, 15:15

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

ydeve wrote:Slotless flight (black) really isn't useful.


It's a convenience in Swamp / Shoals branches, irrelevant for the rest of the 80% of the game, and later on is a hindrance when titans / spriggan air mages start showing up.

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Post Wednesday, 13th July 2016, 15:17

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Hey, don't forget about it being an advantage against jogrun! Plus, you don't have to fly, so it's not really a hindrance to have the option. It is mostly irrelevant of course.
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Wednesday, 13th July 2016, 19:07

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Yeah flight is no story-breaker but they also have innate rElec which I consider more important than ever before in spite (or perhaps because) of the nerf.

They also get +2 in air magic which is a big boon because almost anyone can benefit from it thanks to the utility spells it provides and makes it easier to learn tornado.

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Post Thursday, 14th July 2016, 07:38

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

Black draconians need to be renamed to cyan or blue or something. Black really has nothing to do with air/elec.

Plus, it sounds wrong to someone who's played Angband and variants, where black dracs are acid.

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Post Thursday, 14th July 2016, 13:19

Re: Buff certain Draconian colors.

genericpseudonym wrote:Black draconians need to be renamed to cyan or blue or something. Black really has nothing to do with air/elec.

Plus, it sounds wrong to someone who's played Angband and variants, where black dracs are acid.


Storm Draconians?

Anyway, Ill edit the OP later with a better proposal. Pitch a few ideas in the mean time

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