Remove Ghoul rotting

[chequers]

I'm a little surprised but it doesn't seem anyone else has really suggested this.

Ghoul rotting is:

• Tedious. Optimal play is to butcher every corpse you find, to minimise the time you spend without corpses in your inventory. But chunks vanish quickly and autoexplore doesn't autobutcher/move to corpses.
• Unimportant. You'll only rot 1 hp at a time, and the rot rate is very low unless you're hungry - which you won't be since all chunks are edible.
• A problem for Gh^Gozag!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've already created a patch, but wanted to see what the tavern thinks:
https://github.com/crawl/crawl/pull/38

Sidenote: If this change goes through, perhaps Ghouls should rot more than other species from all rot sources. Gh rot fixing is trivial.

[Sandman25]

Butchering corpses as Gh is ok because you will use those chunks as potions of healing. I mean if we remove rotting, we probably should remove healing from chunks (I am not talking about healing rot here) as well and it will make Gh more similar to Hu which is bad IMHO.

[chequers]

I think healing from chunks is an interesting mechanic, especially combined with slow healing 1.

[jejorda2]

I wouldn't be opposed to letting ghouls bottle blood instead of butcher for chunks. Go ahead and let mummies bottle blood, too, but not drink it. And Liches!

Or ghouls could do something new like pull souls out of corpses and carry them around.

The point would be to eliminate chunks while keeping the mechanic of getting limited delayed healing for kills.

[Siegurt]

What functional difference would that have other than to call chunks something else?

[jejorda2]

Presumably, there would be no chunks (or blood/souls) for non-ghouls. That's different.
I guess kobolds and trolls eat whole corpses. The amulet of the gourmand lets you eat corpses.
Everyone can eat all food available to them at all hunger levels.

[Berder]

Ghouls are basically bad trolls. Like trolls, they suck at spells - gh spell apts are ok but int is awful. Like trolls, they are good at unarmed fighting. Like trolls, they have to butcher every corpse in sight. The main difference is that ghouls are a lot weaker than trolls. Yes, there are a few other differences, but both are usually played as a dumb hungry unarmed fighter.

I think a revamp of ghouls to make them more interesting and distinctive would be called for. I don't know what that might be. Maybe give them some int so they can make good use of their magic aptitudes.

But! I haven't played a lot of ghouls. I think any change should be informed by someone who has played a lot of ghouls and likes them. I've played a lot of vampires and I like their quirks, and I hate it when people who haven't played them much start bashing on them. So the same may apply here. Ghouls may have valuable, powerful, and interesting aspects that only an experienced Gh player would know about, and any changes should not ruin that.

[duvessa]

I think healing from chunks is an interesting mechanic, especially combined with slow healing 1.

Could you elaborate? Eating chunks to heal is really bad in combat so it mainly amounts to faster regeneration out of combat.

I don't think Gh needs a big buff, I think it's already stronger than de, ds, fo, probably gr, he, mu, na, probably te. Yeah it's worse than tr all game but every race that isn't fast or DD is worse than tr all game.

[Sandman25]

I used to hate Gh but I like them now, I even played one GhIE (of Dith to reduce low Int problem) and one Gh who didn't use UC. They are fine and don't need to be changed IMHO. Gh have a very important advantage over Tr - they can wear first plate armour they find (another not so important advantage for 3 rune game is that they can fill all aux slots). I agree Tr are more powerful before Lair and probably before Vaults but I am not sure Tr is better overall especially for 15 rune games. I always had problems with Tr late game while Gh was becoming easier all the time the longer the game lasted.

[Curio]

[*] A problem for Gh^Gozag!!!!!!!!!!!![/list]

Gozag IS the problem so don't even bring him up as an argument.
In short - leave ghouls alone. They are fine. Rotting, but fine.

[Rast]

The idea that ghouls have to constantly eat to undo rot and heal at a decent rate is awesome.

From an interface point of view, it's annoying as hell.

If corpses didn't have other uses (gods, spells), I would suggest that ghouls auto-butcher every corpse they find, by default.

[PleasingFungus]

in gollum* voice: optimal play...

*(as seen in popular film series 'lord of the rings' and 'the hobbit')

[PleasingFungus]

also, fwiw, ghouls can't currently worship any gods that have uses for corpses

unless you count yred's animate dead, I guess

[duvessa]

Well to me ghouls' food mechanic amounts to "your starving status doesn't interfere with combat and you can give yourself yellow/red contam all the time without caring"

[Rast]

FR: When a ghoul kills a monster in melee and it leaves a corpse, the ghoul should immediately gain the effects as if it had eaten one chunk from that monster's corpse. If the corpse was only going to produce one chunk, it would also be immediately destroyed as if butchered (possibly leaving skeleton and hide). If the corpse was going to produce more than one chunk, it would be flagged to produce one less chunk when the player does butcher it.

Flavor rationale: The ghoul is savagely tearing apart and eating the enemy during the fight.

Interface improvement: You'd rarely bother to visit and butcher corpses, since the automatic one chunk per corpse would keep you topped up.

Balance issue: The free mini-heal from each chunk , without using an extra action, is strong. The amount of healing per chunk could be nerfed (say, half the current amount) to compensate.

Balance issue: You'd get a few less useable corpses to cast animate dead on. Nobody cares.

[chequers]

I think healing from chunks is an interesting mechanic, especially combined with slow healing 1.

Could you elaborate? Eating chunks to heal is really bad in combat so it mainly amounts to faster regeneration out of combat.

Two things:
1. eeeeee is more fun than 5
2. If the enemy is several turns away you can heal a substantial amount by eating a chunk or two, which is very different tactically than (optimal play alert) kiting for several hundred turns

FR: When a ghoul kills a monster in melee and it leaves a corpse, the ghoul should immediately gain the effects as if it had eaten one chunk from that monster's corpse.

Like others in this thread I think Ghoul is in a good place power-wise right now, so I don't think it needs buffs. I guess my suggestion is technically a buff but it's a minor one.

[Sandman25]

1. eeeeee is more fun than 5

Very true. My Gh ate 2 chunks in early D when it was confused by invisible Orc Wizard. It would keep eating but confusion ended

[chequers]

Sidenote: If this change goes through, perhaps Ghouls should rot more than other species from all rot sources. Gh rot fixing is trivial.

I added a commit to the PR that does this, but even then Gh rot is trivially fixed. A necro 3 miscast rots ~5hp, and Ghouls heal >10hp per chunk by the time those are a problem.

It would be nice to have some flavour where Ghouls still rot more than other species, I like the flavour in general. I'm just not sure how to do it in a way that's fun. My only thought is occasionally damage taken is applied as both hp and maxhp reduction, but it sounds painful to balance.

[PleasingFungus]

wouldn't it be simpler just to remove ghouls

[Curio]

wouldn't it be simpler just to remove ghouls

no

[chequers]

Several devs didn't like this change because it left ghouls food-clock-free. Since my goal was a less annoying food clock rather than no food clock I've tweaked my suggestion: Ghouls only rot when hungry (or worse) and the rot amount increases with hunger. You rot less in general gameplay, but the food clock is much more dangerous if you slip up.

Since rot chance increases with hunger there may be a near-inescapable rotting death spiral if you get too hungry -- I haven't tested much in low-corpse branches. But any feedback on this approach?

[duvessa]

Why would you get hungry in low-corpse branches unless you remove ghouls' ability to eat permafood?

[Lavandula]

FR: When a ghoul kills a monster in melee and it leaves a corpse, the ghoul should immediately gain the effects as if it had eaten one chunk from that monster's corpse. If the corpse was only going to produce one chunk, it would also be immediately destroyed as if butchered (possibly leaving skeleton and hide). If the corpse was going to produce more than one chunk, it would be flagged to produce one less chunk when the player does butcher it.

Flavor rationale: The ghoul is savagely tearing apart and eating the enemy during the fight.

Interface improvement: You'd rarely bother to visit and butcher corpses, since the automatic one chunk per corpse would keep you topped up.

Balance issue: The free mini-heal from each chunk , without using an extra action, is strong. The amount of healing per chunk could be nerfed (say, half the current amount) to compensate.

Balance issue: You'd get a few less useable corpses to cast animate dead on. Nobody cares.

This is great idea. And it also helps Gozagites - because ghouls would feed from mobs before killing those.
I was going to propose adding "Chunks petition" directly into ability screen, but this is way better.