Halls Hopper
Posts: 72
Joined: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 21:48
Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 22:23
Corpse Throwing for Large Races
This is an idea that I originally posted on the ranged combat page of the development wiki a few months ago: (at the bottom of the page of https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... instorm:rc), where it seemed to get a pretty enthusiastic response. However, nothing seemed to come of it, so I'd just like to reshash it again here, where there's room for a little more discussion. (I'm a tiles player (although a very long time tiles player), so I guess I'm not in touch with the rest of the crawl community as much, except on the SA forums)
For reference, here it is again:
I propose that large races (Ogres, Trolls, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, Draconians) be allowed to more effectively throw large objects… and more specifically, corpses. The justification that this should be allowed at all is that:
The bad news is that its mostly impossible to throw a corpse for practical purposes because very few enemies have a corpse AUM of 20 or less (Giant bats, newts, killer bees, mosquitoes and blowflys, snakes, etc.), and even fewer with corpse weights within the 20-39 range. Goblins have a CAUM of 40, and orcs have a CAUM of 60. (many things are in the 60ish range, actually). I think that given the current formula, Str should be multiplied by about 3 for the purposes of throwing objects for large races, so that a Str of 21 could let you throw an orc corpse up to 4 spaces. For normal-sized races, the multiplier should be 2, so that a human with a freakishly large Str of 31 could throw an orc.
Now finally, the question is: why would you WANT to throw a corpse? I'll give 3 fantastic and fabulous reasons:
The "Jolly Green Giant" idea would also sync well with the trend of giving uniques God powers - a "Jolly Green Giant" could be a a unique Hill Giant with Fedhas powers and a human corpse in his ammo slot. (and maybe also, keeping in with the vine-infested brain in the description above, he could randomly confuse himself for a turn every few turns, which could actually be hilarious).
I'd also like to note that many players have been interested in a "trapper" style of play, and making more versatile use of corpses could be a way to facilitate that without a whole new god or whatever.
Finally, as mentioned on the wiki page, it would be very easy to implement a test version that functioned the same as large-rock throwing (code for which is posted on that page), and I don't think would be too hard to tweak to make it more dependent on Str if that become necessary for balance reasons.
So what do y'all think? Best Feature Request of the year? Or best Feature Request of all time?
For reference, here it is again:
I propose that large races (Ogres, Trolls, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, Draconians) be allowed to more effectively throw large objects… and more specifically, corpses. The justification that this should be allowed at all is that:
- They currently can throw large rocks, which weigh 60 AUM, with ease (for reference, the same AUM as an orc corpse)
- It would be small boost to the otherwise underpowered large races by opening up more strategic variety
- and it would give some reason for these large races to further increase strength, which they currently have in abundance but don't see much benefit from.
- For CAUM-3⇐STR, you can't throw the corpse
- For CAUM>=STR>=CAUM-2, you can throw the corpse up to 2 spaces
- For CAUM+5>=STR>=CAUM+1, you can throw the corpse up to 4 spaces
- For STR>=CAUM+6, you can throw the corpse up to 8 spaces
The bad news is that its mostly impossible to throw a corpse for practical purposes because very few enemies have a corpse AUM of 20 or less (Giant bats, newts, killer bees, mosquitoes and blowflys, snakes, etc.), and even fewer with corpse weights within the 20-39 range. Goblins have a CAUM of 40, and orcs have a CAUM of 60. (many things are in the 60ish range, actually). I think that given the current formula, Str should be multiplied by about 3 for the purposes of throwing objects for large races, so that a Str of 21 could let you throw an orc corpse up to 4 spaces. For normal-sized races, the multiplier should be 2, so that a human with a freakishly large Str of 31 could throw an orc.
Now finally, the question is: why would you WANT to throw a corpse? I'll give 3 fantastic and fabulous reasons:
- Try picturing yourself as a monstrous Jolly Green Giant, an insane terror of the dungeon (your brain infested with spores and vines and all that other good planty stuff) that's divinely driven to rip the Sacred Flesh from the bones of the nonbelievers to build a vessel and platform of your God's “Good Word.” Just as Howard Beale was chosen to spread the corporate cosmology of Arthur Jensen in Network, the best evangelist is one who can bring his message directly to the people! The main use that I see for throwing corpses is for larger Fedhas followers to use with corpse explosion, AKA reproduction. Toss a corpse behind a big group of enemies as a “seed” and then proceed to use the subsequent corpses created by the explosion (or by evolving the produced ballistos) to help take out the rest.
- A similar use, although markedly less dramatic and markedly harder to use given the smaller effect radius, is to combine a thrown corpse with the lvl 2 Necromancy spell Corpse Rot. Portal Projectile would be a must here.
- Creating undead far away from you. It's as if your Ogre Death Knight worked shipping for Dungeon Crawl Postal Service: “Neither Rain, Nor Heat, Nor Gloom of Night / Shall Keep my Zombies from a Fight!”
- If some changes with evocable items go through, in that there could be large, single-use effects, then this feature request might couple nicely with that.
The "Jolly Green Giant" idea would also sync well with the trend of giving uniques God powers - a "Jolly Green Giant" could be a a unique Hill Giant with Fedhas powers and a human corpse in his ammo slot. (and maybe also, keeping in with the vine-infested brain in the description above, he could randomly confuse himself for a turn every few turns, which could actually be hilarious).
I'd also like to note that many players have been interested in a "trapper" style of play, and making more versatile use of corpses could be a way to facilitate that without a whole new god or whatever.
Finally, as mentioned on the wiki page, it would be very easy to implement a test version that functioned the same as large-rock throwing (code for which is posted on that page), and I don't think would be too hard to tweak to make it more dependent on Str if that become necessary for balance reasons.
So what do y'all think? Best Feature Request of the year? Or best Feature Request of all time?
