Ziggurat Zagger
Posts: 5382
Joined: Friday, 25th November 2011, 07:36
Discussion of Gnolls 2.0 commit
To be explicit upfront: I think this is a bad idea, however, I fully support merging it to trunk and having players actually test it out. Experiments are a great thing.
That being said, I don't see how it's possible to hybridize a character with 5 int. Strength and dexterity aren't really *required* for melee effectiveness/dodging, they are merely *helpful*. But you can't really cast spells with 5 int - you'll never reach any significant spellpower, even on the low level spells a 'hybrid' with 'diverse' magic skills should excell at, and your spell hunger will be essentially unmodified. Unless they become carnivores or otherwise ignore spell hunger, playing a significantly magic-using character is going to be largely impossible. They'll be melee and ranged weapons, with possibly some low level magic support (aka, regeneration, blink, etc). It'd probably be very easy to play a crossbow/longbow hunter, with some early game melee until you collect the ammo. I don't see 5 int gnolls ever going significantly into magic, which means they'll learn roughly 6 skills: Fighting, armor (limited by your armor choices with 5 strength), dodging, a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and evocations. Then possibly invocations depending on god, and possibly shields if you want to use slings as a ranged weapon, although this is probably worse than bows/crossbows. Sure they'll have non-zero magic skills, but I don't see those skills making much of an impact at 5 int.
Am I wrong? Has anyone tried them in an experimental branch yet? Do you think it's an improvement over the current version? For what it's worth, I think the current version works pretty well - they are absolutely weaker than most races and the late game is much tougher, but assuming it's meant to be a difficult race, then that's fine. They also succeed in making the early game easier, which is interesting.
Officially ruining greatplayer statistics since Jan 18th, 2015.
I wrote the Melee Naga Guide.
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