Why do Barachians need to be limited by being slow?

[Vajrapani]

Unless it's some explicit challenge race like Mummy,Felid or Octopode, I don't understand why Ba is slow. The hop is nowhere near strong enough that they need a limiter, and it's an especially bad limiter considering it makes speed 10 melee-only monsters an actual threat rather than just dungeon decorations.

Even if you get past the abysmal earlygame, you're still not really compensated because the aptitudes are nearly flat, so it's not like they have any real strengths to fall back on.

At least Nagas get the poison spit and AC bonus along with reduced shield skill penalty due to being a large race, what do frogs get for slowness? Uncontrolled blink? If I wanted that kind of novelty I'd just play a HuWr that Ctrl+Q'd everytime I got within melee range of an ogre.

[Leszczynek]

Unless it's some explicit challenge race like Mummy,Felid or Octopode

Seems to me like they just were meant to be a harder race. I think jump alone wouldn't define them enough, slow + jump is what makes them different from others, even if not by that much.

[prozacelf]

As I said in ##crawl-dev, the jumping mechanic was obviously deemed to be way too fun to be attached to Felids or boots without some sort of penalty. So now we have Power Leap (which you have to make several Ru sacriices to get) and lame Slow + Hop.

[Siegurt]

As I said in ##crawl-dev, the jumping mechanic was obviously deemed to be way too fun to be attached to Felids or boots without some sort of penalty. So now we have Power Leap (which you have to make several Ru sacriices to get) and lame Slow + Hop.

Also shadow step

[prozacelf]

Ah yes. That's also limited in that the thing you're shadow stepping to needs to be asleep though.

[Midn8]

and it costs 4 piety

[Sphara]

Having played several Ba games with different styles (2-h trogger, stabber, necromancer) I can only state that Hop has saved my ass several times and saved me from using consumables countless times. Ba is not a particularly strong species otherwise but slowness is there for a reason.

[removeelyvilon]

I can can see the Hop for slow 1 trade, but why 6/6/6 base stats on top of that? Frog is good, but it's not THAT good.

I think the simplest solution would be to up the base stats to triple 7 (Jackpot!) or 8.
If not, we could draw from the list of frog super powers:

360 degree vision, good swimmer (partially implemented already), prehensile tongue, wall crawling, hibernation, burrowing, moulting, enhanced strenght/agility/stamina, poison/venom (including psychoactive ones), and as somebody already suggested, they could have some sort of metamorphosis ability.

How's a permanent venom brand on top of whatever weapon/webbed fist you may use? To repurpose at least something of the ill-fated Wudzu.
I think slow 1 and the -Hop status would also quash some issues "pros" have with venom.