Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

Joined: Wednesday, 23rd October 2013, 07:56

Post Friday, 12th May 2017, 07:20

Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

Animate Skeleton is one of the remaining "no-brainer" spells that most non-Trog characters should always learn when found. It is also boring to cast it all the time.

I propose that Animate Skeleton be removed. I know this has been said (many times) before. But here's my suggestion (if this has also been proposed before, sorry): Let Animate Dead create a mix of skeletons and zombies, with spellpower affecting the proportion of zombies. This also makes Animate Dead dependent on spellpower, which is a good thing in itself.

This would be a Necromancer nerf, but I believe they can take it. They can also be buffed in some other way if need be.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

For this message the author Sprucery has received thanks: 14
amaril, bel, duvessa, MainiacJoe, mkraemer, nago, Rast, Shard1697, yesno, ZipZipskins and 4 more users
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1762

Joined: Monday, 14th October 2013, 01:05

Post Friday, 12th May 2017, 18:09

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

Necromancers still start with pain so they definitely can take it.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Friday, 12th May 2017, 19:00

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

I feel like Animate Skeleton would be ok as a level 1 spell, if all skeletons were always HD1 creatures, who could not wield weapons. (this would put it on par with Summon small mammal)
Spoiler: show
This high quality signature has been hidden for your protection. To unlock it's secret, send 3 easy payments of $9.99 to me, by way of your nearest theta band or ley line. Complete your transmission by midnight tonight for a special free gift!

Snake Sneak

Posts: 124

Joined: Tuesday, 27th January 2015, 17:12

Post Friday, 12th May 2017, 19:06

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

I agree with the no-brainer aspect of Animate Skeleton even though frankly I love the spell and would miss it if it disappeared. I'd argue for keeping Animate Dead. Being a spell that takes up 4 spell slot levels and also instantly removes all edible "chunks" from the screen feels like somewhat of a meaningful decision to me. But maybe that's because I tend to struggle a lot with hunger management on spellcasters and over-rely on chunks. Personal problem. :-)

Another take on the idea of raising dead would be some new weapon brand, "Foo of Necromancy", that grants an N% chance of raising the killed monster immediately as a zombie. Like a standard-brand version of that unrand Sword of Zgraoondylygoobldygook or whatever it is/was called.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Friday, 12th May 2017, 19:23

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

dolemite99 wrote:Another take on the idea of raising dead would be some new weapon brand, "Foo of Necromancy", that grants an N% chance of raising the killed monster immediately as a zombie. Like a standard-brand version of that unrand Sword of Zgraoondylygoobldygook or whatever it is/was called.

This used to exist, it was awful.
Spoiler: show
This high quality signature has been hidden for your protection. To unlock it's secret, send 3 easy payments of $9.99 to me, by way of your nearest theta band or ley line. Complete your transmission by midnight tonight for a special free gift!
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1698

Joined: Saturday, 18th June 2016, 13:57

Post Friday, 12th May 2017, 19:28

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

BTW, chaos still does that.

Animate Skeleton had some more room when you could be curse-starved and it was a way to produce chunks. Right now, it's a spell I never use because it bores me.
I Feel the Need--the Need for Beer
Spoiler: show
3DSBeTr 15DSFiRu 3DSMoNe 3FoHuGo 3TrArOk 3HOFEVe 3MfGlOk 4GrEEVe 3BaIEChei 3HuMoOka 3MiWnQaz 3VSFiAsh 3DrTmMakh 3DSCKXom 3OgMoOka 3NaFiOka 3FoFiOka 3MuFEVeh 3CeHuOka 3TrMoTSO 3DEFESif 3DSMoOka 3DSFiOka
User avatar

Barkeep

Posts: 4435

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:28

Post Saturday, 13th May 2017, 19:05

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

It's a spell I always use; I should really just macro 'c' to cast it
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Monday, 8th July 2013, 00:32

Post Tuesday, 16th May 2017, 17:08

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

What about raising the level of both spells?
Animate Skeleton - Level 4
Animate Dead - Level 6
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

Joined: Wednesday, 23rd October 2013, 07:56

Post Tuesday, 16th May 2017, 17:16

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

It would still be tedious to cast AS on every corpse.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

Snake Sneak

Posts: 101

Joined: Monday, 8th July 2013, 00:32

Post Tuesday, 16th May 2017, 17:39

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

Hmm... I was focusing on the "no-brainer" element. But now that I think about it, you make a good point.

What if it just worked like other summoning spells and didn't require corpses? Gameplay > flavor.

Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 443

Joined: Thursday, 16th February 2017, 15:23

Post Tuesday, 16th May 2017, 18:00

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

The OP's change is a good incremental improvement, in that it removes one spell with a stand-over-corpse type item interaction. Simulacrum has the same problem though. I think the "no-brainer" stuff is overblown and hard to take seriously as a real game design principle for crawl, even if it is in the design philosophy statement.

Ideally, the direction for necromancy effects would be to remove the explicit corpse dependence altogether and replace with death channel-like trigger on kill effects. This would help clear the way for total removal of corpses.
*Lana Del Rey voice* , video games...

Spider Stomper

Posts: 201

Joined: Thursday, 16th July 2015, 21:47

Post Wednesday, 17th May 2017, 21:14

Re: Remove Animate Skeleton, change Animate Dead

Animate Skeleton *is* a very powerful spell for the level (unless you follow Qazlal and they all just get burned up all the time, or Gozag and there's nothing to animate except the occasional thematic vault skeleton or freed slave).

I certainly wouldn't mind nerfing it by getting rid of the weapons. There's no obvious reason why mindless skeletons should be able to use weapons (or even armor, which might fall right through them if their bones occasionally disarticulate). And I reported a bug recently that the weapons/armor the skeletons take don't get tracked in Find properly - you can actually see them laying on the ground after the skeleton dies, but you can't Find them unless you step on that square first. And I spend most of my time with skeletons trying to make sure they don't get raised with anything good because they might end up in deep water and die and lose them. And, yes, it's way powerful also. So that's a no-brainer to fix.

After that change, making it a Level 2 would nerf the spell more than enough. Once you do that, the raise costs start to be significant, and mean you're wandering around with less magic and a more noticeable loss of points. Another alternative, even more severe, would be to give the corpse its standard magic resistance -- I mean, I pretty much don't bother memorizing spells that face magic resistance chances since they just fail if you actually need them at all, so that would put this on the list. (Unfortunately the spell info never warns you about this, so any new spells introduced face a real skeptical reaction until a character has so many scrolls of amnesia that he can just throw them away...) But it would be more iffy than most since a corpse gives you more chances to try, try again if you're really determined.

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 30 guests

cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.