Make Kobolds the nightstalker species
Posted: Tuesday, 19th May 2020, 18:38
Kobolds are one of the weaker species in the game, which would be fine if they weren't also one of the least interesting. See this thread for a good comparison of kobold to deep elf. Kobold's gimmicks are relatively boring. Small size serves to restrict player weapon options in return for bonus EV... but Halflings are the same size as Kobolds, and Tengu also get an EV bonus at xl 5. Carnivore is not unique to Kobold and the pretense that it's important becomes more absurd with each passing version.
Moving nightstalker from a ds random mut to a guaranteed mut on some species might be desirable because the mutation is both powerful and, for some players, very annoying (it makes autoexplore take forever, for example). As a guaranteed mut, at least you know what you're getting upfront, and it's easier to directly balance the mutation against other aspects of the species design. Kobold seems like a reasonably thematic choice for nightstalker in addition to being a species in need of a better niche.
The specific proposal is as follows: Remove the demonspawn nightstalker facet and give Kobold one level of the nightstalker mutation at experience levels 1, 13, and 26. Kobold apts could be adjusted afterwards, if necessary, or the mutation xls could be tweaked if nightstalker at xl 1 is unreasonably good or xl 26 is too late for rank 3.
To replace the ds facet, I would suggest developing a "hexes facet" featuring some combination of 1) AF_VULN melee; 2) hexes enhancer; 3) radius 1 permanent silence donut, but a full discussion of ds mutations is out of scope in this thread. If there's interest, I'll make another topic.
Moving nightstalker from a ds random mut to a guaranteed mut on some species might be desirable because the mutation is both powerful and, for some players, very annoying (it makes autoexplore take forever, for example). As a guaranteed mut, at least you know what you're getting upfront, and it's easier to directly balance the mutation against other aspects of the species design. Kobold seems like a reasonably thematic choice for nightstalker in addition to being a species in need of a better niche.
The specific proposal is as follows: Remove the demonspawn nightstalker facet and give Kobold one level of the nightstalker mutation at experience levels 1, 13, and 26. Kobold apts could be adjusted afterwards, if necessary, or the mutation xls could be tweaked if nightstalker at xl 1 is unreasonably good or xl 26 is too late for rank 3.
To replace the ds facet, I would suggest developing a "hexes facet" featuring some combination of 1) AF_VULN melee; 2) hexes enhancer; 3) radius 1 permanent silence donut, but a full discussion of ds mutations is out of scope in this thread. If there's interest, I'll make another topic.