Human redesign proposal

[bhauth]

Currently, Humans in DCSS are not very interesting and they're not played very much.

The way DCSS is balanced now, "all 0 aptitudes" is not very good. If you're not getting a positive average aptitude or some other benefit like Ogre HP or Centaur movement, then you're probably doing something wrong.

Humans were originally supposed to be the "jack of all trades" species, but that role has been completely taken by Gnolls now.

My proposal is making Humans the "crosstraining species". The following skill groups would crosstrain for Humans:
1) all melee weapons, unarmed combat
2) bows, crossbows
3) fighting, stealth
4) spellcasting, evocations
5) fire, ice, air, earth, poison
6) hexes, charms, summonings, translocations
7) necromancy, transmutation

To compensate for that bonus, Humans would have slower leveling. In fantasy settings, most humans are weaker than monsters, but heroes can slowly get to be stronger than most monsters, and a human archmage is usually as strong as anything else.

aptitudes:

Spoiler: show

[Implojin]

Counterpoint: Humans are fun.

Being able to pick up and use whatever you find, without bonuses or penalties pushing you one way or another is what roguelikes, on some level, are supposed to be about. Stone Soup needs a species like that.

I'd sooner see every single other species that's primarily defined by aptitudes go to the chopping block, first.

[bhauth]

Being able to pick up and use whatever you find, without bonuses or penalties pushing you one way or another is what roguelikes, on some level, are supposed to be about. Stone Soup needs a species like that.

Have you played a Gnoll?

[Implojin]

Being able to pick up and use whatever you find, without bonuses or penalties pushing you one way or another is what roguelikes, on some level, are supposed to be about. Stone Soup needs a species like that.

Have you played a Gnoll?

A few wins when they were still named Cynocephalus, and a couple more during earlier Gnoll revisions. Have the problems listed in this post (specific text in the spoiler below), namely the low skill caps directly encouraging a specific style of hybridization, been resolved at some point since?

Spoiler: show

I also think that low skillcaps will limit character differentiation pretty severely. With the existing aptitudes and caps, you run out of useful skills around XL:18, and you cap all of them before your 3 rune game is finished. The ripple effects from lowered skillcaps affect spell success rates, spellpower, weapon delay, relative utility of weapon basedelay, opportunity cost of SH, relative utility of SH, maximum available EV, relative utility of Dodging, relative utility of heavy armour, relative utility of summons, and relative utility of spells minimally affected by spellpower, among other things. I don't want to stress this point too much before seeing how other people play this race, but if this design were to be used as-is I expect that most Cyno characters would look very similar as a result of knockon effects from above, (1h + shield, level 6-7 spells mostly buff/summon, midheavy to heavy armour), which feels like a pretty glaring problem.

[bhauth]

A few wins when they were still named Cynocephalus, and a couple more during earlier Gnoll revisions. Have the problems listed in this post (specific text in the spoiler below), namely the low skill caps directly encouraging a specific style of hybridization, been resolved at some point since?

Skill caps are gone. You can cast higher level spells if you go Vehumet or Chei or Ashenzari, so there's variety between late game characters from god choice as well as items. 1H weapons + shields are still favored.

Considering what you want, I don't see how this proposal for Humans is worse than what we have now.

[Implojin]

You can cast higher level spells if you go Vehumet or Chei or Ashenzari, so there's variety between late game characters from god choice as well as items. 1H weapons + shields are still favored.

To me, this part sounds strictly worse than Human. I'll leave further arguments to someone else.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I don't like humans (in DCSS ) but I know some players like them (including at least one dev). Thus if you want "cool humans", it is better to create a new species instead.

[Plantissue]

I quite like humans. They were my first "caster" win. I view humans, like demigods as the "newbie" caster race. Their 0 aptitudes means that there is always a better species for a preset background "build", and their supposed jack of all trades is practically worthless fore melee weapons, but I find that their 0 aptitude means that they really are jack of all trades for all magic skills, allowing them to branch off to whatever spellbook they find lying around. Humans also lack the typical weakness of caster races of lower HP or lack of body slots for armour. The closest race to human would be hill orc.

[bhauth]

I view humans, like demigods as the "newbie" caster race. Their 0 aptitudes means that there is always a better species for a preset background "build", and their supposed jack of all trades is practically worthless fore melee weapons, but I find that their 0 aptitude means that they really are jack of all trades for all magic skills, allowing them to branch off to whatever spellbook they find lying around. Humans also lack the typical weakness of caster races of lower HP or lack of body slots for armour.

But how would my proposal here make humans worse for that?

[Plantissue]

By being a pointless game mechanic as it is already essentially taken by gnolls.
What I am saying is that I disagree with your entire premise that they are uninteresting, and that because you are playing a race without positive apts, then you are automatically doing something wrong. Humans don't need to have differentiating apts; that they are flat is interesting enough; that your suggestion would make Human power level rise doesn't matter that your entire premise is not that I can recognise.

[Plantissue]

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