Proposal for a new race

[Roderic]

Hi, it's me again with a new idea for a playable race. Suggestions, improvements and brainstorming are welcome. Rough critics will be banished to the Abyss

Race: Huorn, Ent, living tree... whatever

Whether it's not sure if they are forest creatures that have become treeish in symbiotic relationship with plants or high evolved trees able to walk and talk, they look like huge humanoid trees, wise and strong.

They are a race with good attributes in strength and intelligence but very poor in dexterity. Their inability to wear armour or clothes it is compensated with a thick bark to increase AC and the capacity to wear more than two rings and more than one amulet, for they can grow branches destined to place them when they increase their level.

Huorns act as living plants. They nourish from water which can be obtained from fountains, water potions or simply from swallow water areas; they do not get hungry but thirsty. They are susceptible to fire or ice but not so much to poison. Their mobility is slow, comparable to nagas but they are not so stealthy, although they can develop this ability but in a low rate. Their immense presence may be a handicap but huorns develop an ability to disguise themselves as real trees while being static, so wandering creatures they not take their presence as a menace; later on, this camouflage ability is granted even while moving and being close to tree zones.

Other abilities that can develop are to grow branches to wear magic items (as said before) and the growing of thorns in their branch-arms to increase the damage. Poison thorns could be another interesting ability to take into account.

As said before, they are quite strong, comparable to trolls but instead of claws, they have bludgeoning hands that act like clubs; huorns can not use really much weapons: just maces and flails, staves and poleaxes. They are too clumsy for swords or daggers and they hate really much axes. They are not competent with bows but with slings.

They are really able to use magic due to their high intelligence: for obvious reasons they avoid fire and ice magic, but they are competent with enchantments, transmutations and necromancy, also with the air and earth elements.

Suitable roles: fighter, monk, priest, reaver, enchanter, necromancer, transmuter, summoner, air or earth elementalist, venom mage.

Suitable gods would be Cheibriados to take advantage of their slow, pondrous motion, Fedhas for their plant affinity, Ydre for the necromancers, Sif Muna for spell casters and Trog or Okawaru for fighters. Someone else?


To sum up, they provide strong but slow and noticeable spellcasters with a good capacity to fight with a limited number of weapons.


Are they worth enough? More ideas and suggestions to fit them into Crawl game-style?

[Roderic]

Thanks for your observations. You have to understand that I have really few experience in Crawl so I cannot figure out the possible incoherences or bad ideas. What about to be able to store water in spines like cacti or in cavities like baobabs for the dry environments ? And transmuters can obtain water potions as far as I remember. Perhaps huorns could quaff any potion and nourish altogether. Anyway, they are quite resilient to thirst, not as food demander as an ogre or a troll despite their size. Another posibility would be to be able to digest rocks besides water.

The disguise ability was though to allow them an alternative tactic instead of fighting or spell-casting because they are slow to retreat or escape and not really unnoticeable. I think it could be improved in some way for sure.

[dpeg]

I won't promise that a tree species will make it into the game although it's certainly a recurring topic. Just a bunch of comments:
1. Everything minmay said (praise and criticism) is spot on.
2. If you think everything has been said, move the proposal to the wiki: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:species:start
3. I love species with slow speed. That is, I love nagas and I'd be happy to have another one (which should be very much unlike nagas).
4. The trees could employ a unique walking mode (this is radical and might be a pretty bad idea): instead of slowly walking to an adjacent square, they would create spores/trunks/whatever in the vicinity and then unroot and move to this square. Placement of those spores would be slow and somewhat random. The unusual interface can probably be worked around: battle would work as now: if there's an adjacent monster, trying to "walk" in that direction will attack it (and not attempt to move). All nearby items can be 'g'rabbed with a single command. If you need to go to a specific location (say, an altar), just use 'x' or 'X' -- it may take just a bit longer. Probably rubbish idea

[Roderic]

I've to manage how to post in the wiki...

Ok, the problem of water seems simply to solve forgetting the water tiles. Since no race drinks from water tiles, huorns either (several reasons: they dislike salty water or the acidic PH of swampy water, or they cannot bend so much to drink ). As a I said before, eating stones could be another source of nourishment. If there are more problems I could admit that they are carnivorous plants, or that they suck the fluids from living beings (distasteful indeed).

I was not thinking on them as root-footed but having trunk legs. The chiefly idea is to let them to be a race for bulky slow spell-casters with limited fighting techniques, though impressive.

What would be better, letting them to have some stealth aptitude or to be more noticeable? Probably they can stand up quite well in unarmed close combat, so maybe it is fine to have spell-casters that do not sneak or run away when magic fails. I presume ogres are this kind of being, so huorns would be slower and stronger.

[co]

When I read dpeg's walking mode idea, I got an idea of my own. Consider this:
Every turn you do not move (that is your char doesn't change position) Your roots will grow deeper into the ground of that tile, whether you want it or not. (you can think of it as a mutation that grows when you stand still).

The deeper your roots grows the faster you regen (or some other buff such as AC boost).

But if you want to move while rooted to the ground you have to "unroot" before you can move.
This should take some extra time, something like one turn for each level of the "rooted" mutation. Possibly the "rooted" mutation could also prevent translocations in some way (disallow it completly or damage depending on depth of roots?).

This means that you would move at normal speed (normal to the hourn at least) as long as you keep moving, but when you stop to fight you will lock yourself more and more to the ground. Of course there is a limit to how much you can root (3-5 levels maybe) to the ground and it could take longer to get more rooted.

This should create some interesting decisons when fighting both ranged and meelee monsters at the same time.

[danr]

That is actually kind of an interesting idea!

I assume when you are rooted you would not be able to teleport or blink, or you would lose 1/3 your HP when doing so, or you would have a Dex or movement penalty afterward because you''d have all these roots hanging on to you that would make movement awkward.

It is very easy to come up with ideas that would give characters major buffs. The challenge is balancing it with some interesting and appropriate drawbacks. This sounds promising.

Other ideas
- High natural AC, but rF-.
- Is this a relatively human form? I.e a "wooden" man that has some tree-like behaviours, a hybrid like Kenku / Naga? Or is it a tree with arms? If the latter, it would probably be unfitting armour, helmet restricted, and also no amulet (can't fit around tree trunk).

I think keeping it relatively humanoid would be good, then you can still go with normal food (Herbivore 1 or 2?) and not get into some crazy soil / water mechanic.

[Roderic]

Nice to see positive feedbacks!

Given that you are speculating about the shape of the tree-humanoid race, I attach few images of artist renditions for better design (excuse me if they are too large, I usually avoid image insertion in forums):

I like this one: giant humanoid with bark and roots, perhaps a little flexible (it is sit)


A more treeish one, still with legs


Ents of the LOTR


and, as a curiosity, the probable original concept from Tolkien, where Ents are like forest giants but with no vegetal traits at all

[Roderic]

I thought on something similar to co's idea when thinking about the root displacement. I was afraid that a slow unstealthy race was unable to fight well in an ambush or being surrounded because they have little possibilities to run away and then relying on their good close combat. So I consider to anchor (root) themselves to the ground but as a voluntary aptitude like the flying capability of Kenkus, in order to resist and regenerate more than usual. I think they can fight quite well in close combat and in casting spells so they act as "towers" that place themselves in some room while standing their ground against several hostiles.

[danr]

Maybe they could pelt things with acorns too. Sort of like the manticore's ability. So they'd have a ranged attack when they are planted.

[jackalKnight]

I'd be behind this race if it had a proper "Ent/tree" flavor. They should be very, VERY powerful but also level and gain skills at a terribly slow rate, which would force players to rely heavily on the innate "ingrain health regen" until about midgame, when they'd have to make a push to develop new skills. I'd like a race with astounding AC (that also has a natural increase!) and HP counterbalanced by pathetic EV, Stealth, and slow EXP gains so you really get the feel of being a tree. They'd (naturally) make good Chei worshippers since Ents move and think in such a slow, deliberate manner. Basically the opposite of Spriggans.

I also like the acorn weapon idea, but make it neutral damage so it could be used in many situations. Trees should be most comfortable being trees, so their innate should be tactically useful to the point that players use it frequently. Not like the naga venom spit which isn't too useful past early game.

[szanth]

I'm all for it.

[Roderic]

I also like the acorn weapon idea, but make it neutral damage so it could be used in many situations. Trees should be most comfortable being trees, so their innate should be tactically useful to the point that players use it frequently. Not like the naga venom spit which isn't too useful past early game.

Why only acorns? The "fruit gimmick" could be like the innate ability of the draconians, different for different colours, or , in this case, different fruits for several species of tree that you develop when reaching some level. I like the idea of having some ranged attack for they should not be really skilled at all with missile weapons.

[danr]

Acorns wouldn't do much damage, but they might distract(!) a monster for a chance to stab it.

[Strongpoint]

I think they should get racial bonus from wooden weapons

And no innate ranged attack, no natural AC, please, don't turn it into Naga MK2

[szanth]

Without natural AC, this idea sucks.

[MrMisterMonkey]

I'd hardly say it sucks; surely you could make them appealing in other ways, no?

[co]

I would like this race to be the go-to guy when it comes to armored spellcasting. So I would say no to natural AC but yes to most armor slots open.

[szanth]

I'd hardly say it sucks; surely you could make them appealing in other ways, no?

It's not a huge boost, just enough to make them not die 499/500 spawns on D:3.

[jackalKnight]

Armored spellcasting is a good niche, but they need some sort of natural AC. It would be cool to have them a bulky but limited caster (ie being good at a few schools, but sucking at others). To go with the whole Fedhas feel, they could be bad at Necromancy, for example. We already have DD for bulky necros.

Oh, and Roderick's idea for different types of Treants having different types of ability projectiles is cool, too. ANything to add to the variety of playing experience is good for making me start a new character.

[danr]

They could have high natural HP instead of high natural AC. And natural regeneration. Or some combination.

Draconians also have natural AC, and noone complains that they are just like Nagas.

[Roderic]

Ok, I see that everybody agree with the idea of armored, slow spellcasters; this means high Str and Int but poor Dex. Also poor or nil stealth.

So the debate now is how to make them resilient, whether with natural AC like trolls or draconians, or with focusing on HP mechanisms, either by regeneration or a high amount of them. I can barely imagine capacity to wear any armor.

In my first post I suggested the magic schools: air and earth elementalists (they should be very proficient in both schools because the tree nature make them in contact with air at the top and earth at the bottom), poison, transmutation and summoning, probably to a less extent even necromancy for there are some wicked cemetery beings that are in touch with the dead. Fire and ice elements excluded.

Limited competences with weaponry, neither missiles, nor swords, axes. They are better with staves, clubs, maces or some pole-weapons.

I like the Treant name, I didn't realized it before. It would be fine even for a monster class in ASCII with a green T

[danr]

I think they should have a bonus with wooden weapons, like orcish or dwarven weapons for those species.

[szanth]

Eh, give them a bonus to staves, bows and rods (assuming they're wooden), but don't make -another- useless racial thing to tack onto equipment.

[danr]

Sorry if you think my idea would be as useless as things that are already in the game. Please don't take a dismissive tone to other's ideas or make general critical comments without constructive advice.

A scroll of enchant weapon 1 is not useless, and that's about the same as the benefit of a racial weapon.

I am not proposing to add a new variety, eg. a "treeish club" or a "treeish quarterstaff". It would just be handled implicitly, and a context-specific line could be added to the descriptions of wooden weapons: "Treants do slightly more damage with this weapon because of their affinity with wood".

[ohmi]

First time poster, noob. This a wonderful idea.
Here are some thoughts in no particular order and not cumulative or related to each other except where noted:
Racial ability of reaching (or new mutation) with wood weapons or polearms or giant clubs.
As they level Treents get aoe unarmed attacks plus their weapon to help when surrounded.
Unarmed only augmented with above ideas?
Carnivorous.
Shields only, racial bonus.
rPois rN+ combo.

In Tolkien the Ents could travel very quickly relative to the hobbits and moved very fast in battle when they got "positively hasty".
Somthing akin to berserk then?

[evktalo]

I like co's movement idea. One problem: when resting, you become rooted, and if a monster that you'd like to run away from appears, you're a bit screwed. Now, this isn't a problem in itself, but you could tediously avoid this problem by "resting" via moving back and forth. One possible solution would be for the species not regenerate HP/MP if unrooted.

I'd really like the rooting to be automatic rather than toggled by the player.

--Eino

[MrMisterMonkey]

I like the idea of not regenerating HP/MP while unrooted; this should also apply to the Regen spell and rings, but not necessarily Trog's Hand (like how DD can use Trog's Hand but not Regen spell/rings)
I'm also curious to see how this works in extended game

[szanth]

If it's already a problem then it's not making it a bigger problem. And besides, you aren't always going to be around a staircase to heal up.

[evktalo]

minmay, that's a good point. I also see what szanth is saying but you could also say that if it's already a problem, there shouldn't be more of it. I don't think the idea is too bad to not include it, but if a better one comes up it should go in instead.

Another way might be that the rooted/unrooted distinction is only in place when monsters are around. Invisible monsters make an annoying corner case then.

--Eino

[jackalKnight]

How about this as a compromise; have a slow heal when uprooted and a fast heal when rooted? That way you wouldn't be able to go back to heal in seconds, but you'd heal at roughly ghoul rate even while you are moving.

[evktalo]

How about only healing when you explore? (your roots have already drained all the nutrition from the levels you've seen)

--Eino

[MrMisterMonkey]

abuse(?) case: don't clear levels when unnecessary, come back and explore them later for healing
even more abusive: farm easy infinite areas (abyss) for healing for harder extended game areas (tomb, hells)

[dpeg]

How about only healing when you explore? (your roots have already drained all the nutrition from the levels you've seen)

That's an approach explored in some newer (and smaller, hence more radical) roguelikes: Each level can only provide a finite amount of healing (for those other games, it could be a finite amount of experience). If you have used it up, you've got to go somewhere else.

Within Crawl, this system doesn't really make sense -- but it could work a new species. I like it. Some obvious thoughts:

We don't want players to go back to D:1 in order to get up some more health points. Instead, the total amount of healing is kept track of, and players can use up that anywhere they want. (E.g. if you have 4.6 levels worth of healing remaining, you can use them right on D:12 where you fight now.)

Since healing is now finite, there is some overlap with Deep Dwarves -- players will complain that they need a healing god in order to survive. Of course that really depends on the amount of healing provided for each level. We could also rule that deeper levels provide more health, and that external healing does not work.

By the way, this is thematically linked to the tale of Antaeus, who (as a son of Gaia, the earth) was strong whenever he touched ground. The new species should suffer from being afloat (and perhaps also from being in water).