Mines Malingerer
Posts: 47
Joined: Thursday, 1st March 2012, 21:31
Tuesday, 6th March 2012, 16:31
Thoughts on early gameplay on Summoner and Artificier
While I have never made an individual game past clearing the mines, I've played many games through the "early game" (Before clearing Lair) and have a game design suggestion for the boards:
I believe Summoner and Artificer have a disproportionally difficult early game due to a design problem, unlike most other starting backgrounds they can not use their starting skills as easily without being punished. Let me explain:
Any melee based background uses their starting weapon and weapon skills to tough out early fights. Beyond a trivial amount of food they do not use an resource killing rats nor do they loose xp. They skills one learns (using choke points, when to run, when to burn additional resources (food, piety, wands, etc)) and transferable thought the mid game.
Most magic based backgrounds use their starting spells and casting skill to tough out early fights. They generally have the toolkit to get though the lair without counting on lucky book drops. The skills they learn (in game and as a player) generally transfer through mid game. While using one's Necromancy minions can sap XP, the starting books has enough other spells (such as pain) that this is not normally a huge problem.
While most ranged weapon based backgrounds have some problems with early ammo consumption, finding additional ammo via shops or gods isn't terribly difficult much of the time, although I think they should be started with a bit more ammo.
Artificer, however is a different story. While starting with three non-trivial wands, the player generally learns that evoking them in cases that a melee fighter would not (normal fights) leads to sub-par fighter with empty wands. Even the wiki suggests quickly picking up a weapon skill and ignoring the evocation skill until picking up a god (only 1 evoke god really) or lucking into a decent rod (difficult without a scroll of acquirement). One generally plays the early game as a sub-par fighter with lucky early wand finds.
Summoner also doesn't play like the rest of the caster classes. Since their starting tool (summoning) seriously drains rewarded xp, the best play is to pick up some type of external weapon or skill and use that to kill most of the "easy" mobs, falling back on spamming summons for difficult enemies. Many times I've played summoner, I feel like a sub-par archer/slinger with magical support I try not to use.
Playing a summoner in particular punishes the player for using the provided initial skillset (the artificer at least can turn into a sub-par fighter when the wands are drained) by reducing the total XP pool. Picking up a stack of darts/stones/spears to chuck at every monster in the early levels feels very grindy when I have no interest in using those long term.
I'm not suggesting removing the XP penalty for summoned monsters. Spamming summons can be used to bypass a non-trivial number of challenges. Here are my thoughts:
1a) Give the summoner a better starting weapon / path for killing outside of summoning skill. This feels a bit hacky, but +1 dagger or staff would by helpful.
ab) Give the summoner a spell in the starting spellbook that is useful without sucking XP. Maybe something like:
Level 1 (Summoning)
Summon Golem
Summons a permanent golem as a faithful servant. Its power grows (in HD) as your summoning skill improves. Summoning it requires a portion of ones life (1d4 damage on cast) and its death costs even more (torment just player). Casting again will unsummon. Damage caused by this creature do not reduce gained XP.
It does feel more like a Necro spell, but I like the idea. One could go further (towards a "pet" class) by allowing self buffs to affect the golem if one wishes, but the idea is to allow a summoner to gain full XP while placing them self in risk (torment + life damage on cast prevents spamming). One could replace Spam-animals with this spell in the starting book.
2) Give artificer a rod that doesn't suck.
In previous versions, the artificer had a choice on starting weapon, with avoiding the "Rod of Striking" being a power gamer quiz question. It hit like a magic missile except missed a bunch, didn't grow with the character at all, and left the player wishing he'd picked up the first sword on the ground instead. While the starting wand collection is better, it still is a consumable resource that is much more difficult to replace than arrows.
I'd like the idea of a starting rod with a low level power useful for surviving the early game and a higher level power(s) useful for getting oneself to the lair. (Maybe some skills are unusable until a certain evocation level). Something to make early use of evocation a viable option.
tl; dr;
Summoner and Artificer could use some early game love. I've laid out a few ideas here and don't mind getting my hands dirty (hacking up a patch) if people are interested in the idea.
Thoughts?
I believe Summoner and Artificer have a disproportionally difficult early game due to a design problem, unlike most other starting backgrounds they can not use their starting skills as easily without being punished. Let me explain:
Any melee based background uses their starting weapon and weapon skills to tough out early fights. Beyond a trivial amount of food they do not use an resource killing rats nor do they loose xp. They skills one learns (using choke points, when to run, when to burn additional resources (food, piety, wands, etc)) and transferable thought the mid game.
Most magic based backgrounds use their starting spells and casting skill to tough out early fights. They generally have the toolkit to get though the lair without counting on lucky book drops. The skills they learn (in game and as a player) generally transfer through mid game. While using one's Necromancy minions can sap XP, the starting books has enough other spells (such as pain) that this is not normally a huge problem.
While most ranged weapon based backgrounds have some problems with early ammo consumption, finding additional ammo via shops or gods isn't terribly difficult much of the time, although I think they should be started with a bit more ammo.
Artificer, however is a different story. While starting with three non-trivial wands, the player generally learns that evoking them in cases that a melee fighter would not (normal fights) leads to sub-par fighter with empty wands. Even the wiki suggests quickly picking up a weapon skill and ignoring the evocation skill until picking up a god (only 1 evoke god really) or lucking into a decent rod (difficult without a scroll of acquirement). One generally plays the early game as a sub-par fighter with lucky early wand finds.
Summoner also doesn't play like the rest of the caster classes. Since their starting tool (summoning) seriously drains rewarded xp, the best play is to pick up some type of external weapon or skill and use that to kill most of the "easy" mobs, falling back on spamming summons for difficult enemies. Many times I've played summoner, I feel like a sub-par archer/slinger with magical support I try not to use.
Playing a summoner in particular punishes the player for using the provided initial skillset (the artificer at least can turn into a sub-par fighter when the wands are drained) by reducing the total XP pool. Picking up a stack of darts/stones/spears to chuck at every monster in the early levels feels very grindy when I have no interest in using those long term.
I'm not suggesting removing the XP penalty for summoned monsters. Spamming summons can be used to bypass a non-trivial number of challenges. Here are my thoughts:
1a) Give the summoner a better starting weapon / path for killing outside of summoning skill. This feels a bit hacky, but +1 dagger or staff would by helpful.
ab) Give the summoner a spell in the starting spellbook that is useful without sucking XP. Maybe something like:
Level 1 (Summoning)
Summon Golem
Summons a permanent golem as a faithful servant. Its power grows (in HD) as your summoning skill improves. Summoning it requires a portion of ones life (1d4 damage on cast) and its death costs even more (torment just player). Casting again will unsummon. Damage caused by this creature do not reduce gained XP.
It does feel more like a Necro spell, but I like the idea. One could go further (towards a "pet" class) by allowing self buffs to affect the golem if one wishes, but the idea is to allow a summoner to gain full XP while placing them self in risk (torment + life damage on cast prevents spamming). One could replace Spam-animals with this spell in the starting book.
2) Give artificer a rod that doesn't suck.
In previous versions, the artificer had a choice on starting weapon, with avoiding the "Rod of Striking" being a power gamer quiz question. It hit like a magic missile except missed a bunch, didn't grow with the character at all, and left the player wishing he'd picked up the first sword on the ground instead. While the starting wand collection is better, it still is a consumable resource that is much more difficult to replace than arrows.
I'd like the idea of a starting rod with a low level power useful for surviving the early game and a higher level power(s) useful for getting oneself to the lair. (Maybe some skills are unusable until a certain evocation level). Something to make early use of evocation a viable option.
tl; dr;
Summoner and Artificer could use some early game love. I've laid out a few ideas here and don't mind getting my hands dirty (hacking up a patch) if people are interested in the idea.
Thoughts?
Won 2 Games - MiFi (2)
