New Species Proposal/Demigod Replacement- Fallen Angel

[sebastian_m]

I would first like to start off by saying that I am in no way a dungeon crawl expert, so I am open to any suggestions/improvements, as this game is of course heavily dependent on the community for growth and development. However, I am not a complete noob, as I am have won 2 games (both demonspawn). From this I have learned 2 important things: firstly, how fun playing demonspawn is due to the randomness of mutations, to the point where 1/3 of my games have been demonspawn. Secondly, how plain and boring demigod can be as a species. With these 2 ideas in mind, I set out to create the polar opposite of demonspawn that will hopefully replace demigod, the Fallen Angel, or Fa.

The general idea of this species is that you are an angel who has wronged the good gods. As you advance through the dungeon, you will redeem yourself in the eyes of the good gods, regaining your powers and working as their faithful servant in cleansing the dungeon and acquiring the Orb of Zot. However, you will not have the ability to worship the gods, as you are merely one of their many tools.

Species Features
-10% HP
25% change angles become neutral
rPois
See Invis
?Inability to transmute? (Undecided, maybe transmutation magic is unusable but enemies can still transform you)
Cannot worship gods, no invocations skill
Inability to use any necromancy spells
?Cannot go invisible? (Undecided)
Cannot use evil/chaotic items (including Demon weapons)
Level 3 gain wings and ability to permanently fly (0.9 speed when flying)
When on ground normal 1.0 speed
Level 6 start to gain random angel mutations (How many should one character get? I was thinking 2 resistances, 1 offensive and 2 miscellaneous)

Angel Mutations
This is where community ideas are most needed, as there are never too many available mutations. However, these must be relatively balanced.

Possible Ideas:
Resistances
-rN++
-rDamnation
-50% Mutation resistance
-rC+ and rF+
-rElec
-rCorr
-rDisease and rRot
Offensive Abilities
-Shining One smite, strengthens with level (works only on unholy enemies, or maybe 33% on normal enemies?)(uses up health like demonspawn hurl damnation, cool down like lamp of fire, heavy mp cost?)
-Ability to spawn 1 tile of Blessed Fire Cloud
Miscellaneous Abilities
-Shining One Halo
-Minor Healing
-Chance of Angles not attacking is raised to 50%, and now includes all holy beings

Aptitudes (prone to change)
Fighting 0
Spellcasting 0
Short Blades-3
Conjurations 0
Long Blades -1
Hexes-2
Maces and Flails-2
Charms+2
Axes -3
Summonings-2
Polearms-1
Translocations-1
Staves-3
Transmutations (If spells allowed)+1
Unarmed Combat-4
Fire Magic-2
Bows-1
Ice Magic-1
Crossbows -2
Air Magic+1
Throwing -2
Earth Magic-3
Slings -2
Poison Magic-4
Armor -3
Evocations 0
Dodging +1
Stealth-5
Shields -1

How this Fits in with DCSS Design Goals
I aimed to create a semi-random species that is also balanced, with the goal of being fun and highly repayable. While some mutations may be better than others, it is part of the randomness and uniqueness of characters, and such is also the case with demonspawn mutations cough*powered by death*cough. While I proposed this species idea, the community, I hope, will shape it.

Remember, any suggestions are welcomed, especially as to the balance of this species! Thank you for your time!

[Inarius]

I proposed an "Angel" race some times ago. The main issue with your proposal is that there are no links with any existing monster.

And it seems too strong, too.

[Implojin]

How would this species design add value to DCSS?

Species are Stone Soup's difficulty setting.

If you want to add a new species to DCSS, you should start with a strong mechanical gameplay hook. If you come up with a hook that's significantly different from existing species and fun to play, you're much more likely to see developer and player interest in your concept. For many species that made it into trunk, that hook took the form of an enforced challenge conduct. (e.g., Formicid's hook was perma-stasis, Fo's ability set was written to support that concept.)


Your proposal, as currently written, is all over the place. Its hooks seem to be:
1: Godless
2: Demonspawn-equivalent mut gain at levelup

What interesting gameplay would this create, that isn't already enabled by Dg and Ds?

[To put this another way: If you are able to come up with good gameplay mechanics for levelup muts, why wouldn't you simply add them to the existing Demonspawn mutation set and improve that species? If you feel that a godless conduct is insufficiently interesting to support a species*, why would you argue to merge that design with another species, instead of simply arguing for its removal? What unique mechanical value, in terms of difficulty selection at character creation, does this merge-proposal bring to the table?]

*(Implicitly, I don't agree with this at all. If you find a godless conduct uninteresting, you probably aren't using god abilities effectively when you play other species.)


The rest of your proposal is very muddy. For the sake of providing useful feedback, I'll address some of this below:

* HP growth is a balance tool, and adds nothing unique to your species. I wouldn't even consider this in design until you've assessed how your species' gameplay hook will affect difficulty.
* Same goes for aptitudes. These tweak item usefulness, and are best used only if your primary hook will become more interesting by restricting an item subset. Otherwise, it's best to leave them roughly equal so that players can pickup and use those neat items at floorgen.
* Angel neutrality among good gods was previously a feature, which became an unfeature. Bringing back an unfeature is unlikely to go over well with the devteam.
* Your set of Angelic muts has major overlap with a previously-rejected species called Djinni. Dj did not play well. Bringing back an unspecies is unlikely to go over well with the devteam.
* Your set of restrictions of minor and already-rare items won't add anything fun to your species' gameplay. A tmut restriction, for example, is the functional equivalent of locking out a background and a couple of books. It's pointless. What interesting gameplay will result from locking this species out from a minor subset of items? (The floor generator already serves the function of varying item presentation per-game; for an item restriction to result in interesting gameplay choices, the restriction needs to be wide-reaching. See: Mummies.)
* Minor healing as a self-usable ability is unlikely to go over well with the devteam. (Self-healing and self-buffs have become increasingly restricted to charge-based items in recent versions of Crawl. DCSS is more fun when your golfbag of tools has a hole in the bottom.)


You've started with lore here, and worked your way backwards into a clusterfuck of concepts that won't play nicely together. If you try it from the other direction -- coming up with a clear gameplay mechanic hook then designing around it -- you'd be much more likely to garner interest.

(I realize this post is quite blunt, but please don't take it to be exclusionary. Community-contributed ideas are the core of Stone Soup, and are always fun.)

[sebastian_m]

Could the idea of choosing between being a profane servitor and a angel act as a hook? Profane servitors would have different stats and aptitudes, vulnerability to holy, yet be able to wield evil items while also haveing a different set of mutations.

[Sorcerous]

Could the idea of choosing between being a profane servitor and a angel act as a hook? Profane servitors would have different stats and aptitudes, vulnerability to holy, yet be able to wield evil items while also haveing a different set of mutations.

@Inarius already made a species proposal with the idea that different aptitudes (based on deity choice) could mark the difference between the two. You're still taking up the idea of moving numbers around without having a clear initial concept that makes the species play in an appealing way.
This is the thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26153&p=336809#p336809

From what I could understand, the core idea revolved around having innate *Faith and the possibility of switching an evil god for a good one and vice versa.

But the MAIN ideas about Angels are quite simple actually :

1 : Two forms (Profane Servitor vs Angel) determined by your choice of god, which can be changed during the game if conversion.
2 : Gods are chosen at the beginning, and can only be either good or Evil.
3 : Innate *Faith (it's one of the very rare bonus i never found as an Innate racial bonus !) and Fly at lvl 14.
4 : Huge bonus to Invocation (which is good as all evil and good gods are invocation-based)
5 : An innate talent based on Piety consumption (healing for Angel, no idea for Profane Servitor)
6 : Maybe an evocable Umbra/Aura which could use Piety as an innate talent

Some other ideas were moved back and forth, but the core concept was interesting. This idea was eventually shot down because having *Faith would pretty much create a huge difficulty drop once certain divine abilities or gifts became available - and they would become available much sooner then for other species due to the aptitudes and piety gain.

Based on more information, you could shape your own species idea. @Implojin gave some solid questions above that you can use as a starting point.

[Inarius]

Yeah, it's a real issue. But i still think there is "something" to do with innate *Faith + the idea of switching sides and a Invocation-based race.

I mean

"godless" races is something already done.
Random specie as already been done, too.
so @sebastian_m we already have 27 races, and, even if some are not very different from others, last proposed were.
If you want to propose a new race, you have either to
- propose a revampiring on an existing one
- propose a new race with something never done before.
Here, this race is more a combination of existing stuff than new stuff.

[sebastian_m]

guys check out my new revamped version of the angel species here https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26507