Mycelium race

[koolguydude2]

Alright... I'm a noob and this is my first post here, so people will probably hate me and stuff, but these ideas are not meant to be taken completely seriously(nor am I). I just thought of them and they will certainly have blatant flaws. I just want to throw them out here for discussion. Now, without further ado, my idea.
The Mycelium race (Mushroom man): small i.e can't wear most armor,resistant to magic, has a rubbery body. But.. they can't read scrolls, on account of their lack of eyes. However, they can sense things like deep dwarves or ash worshippers, but much better. They have excellent hearing and can use echolocation (supersonic, doesn't alert monsters) So they can basically "see" the dungeon, but not quite. There are many limitations on this, mind you. It is also possible for them to "see" monsters beyond normal range because of their hearing and echolocation. You may be thinking "No spellcasters lol fial", but let's just say that spellbooks (and not scrolls) are magical so they auto translate so the reader can understand (actually makes sense, considering the diversity of races). And since this race can't read, it turns into an audiobook(alerts monsters and takes longer to read. Now that I think of it, this would bypass spellbook difficulty, wouldn't it? ). ...Total bullshit that had to be added for this race to work, but there you go. So there are the drawbacks, do you want to hear the good things? Alright then! Prepare for almost certainly flawed crappy ideas! They can jump around places!(yes, cooldown) and/or.. They have a chance to cause effects with proximity or, less overpoweredly, by touch! Things like poison at low level, confusion or sleep at medium level, and a *low* chance to petrify at high level. This carries with it a high metabolism increase... they have an inclination to "eat" rotten meat, although they don't eat like normal races. They absorb corpses and can eat by simply standing on a corpse. Nutrients are nutrients, so they have no problems absorbing "bad" corpses. They can still "e"at things, but it takes a while...They can even absorb bones if they need to. Oh, and you know how they see by hearing and echolocation? That means sinv. They have a reduced sight range for quiet monsters like ghosts though. They can't wear any headgear, because they already have a mushroom cap! *ba-dum-tsh* And lastly, they cannot worship any good gods, their digestion is "unholy".
So...that was kinda unorganized and dumb, but hopefully there was some good stuff in there. And... end of my first post. Discuss!

[nicolae]

Total bullshit that had to be added for this race to work, but there you go.

That's usually the first sign of a problem. The unique parts are mostly annoying weaknesses (can't read, can't wear armor, unholy for whatever reason, memorizing spellbooks is harder, etc.), and the eating mechanic doesn't seem to be any kind of improvement or interesting change.

[koolguydude2]

Yeah, I know it's really convoluted,(and super difficult to implement) but people will come up with better solutions I suppose. And mycelium can eat every "food"item to engorged, is what I'm trying to say. I made an awful idea there and there should be something better in its place. Thanks!

[koolguydude2]

Haha, my idea IS that crappy. Sorry for wasting your time, guys.

[neil]

The source of Juffo-Wup is at 629.1, 220.8.

[Guppyfry]

I actually think this fungi player could be an interesting idea and could be done almost entirely with the existing mutation set:

Starting mutations:
Night stalker 3
Pseudopods 3 (or just deformed body)
Slowness 3
Blurry vision (I would not include this, but am in deference to the OP)
Fast metabolism
rPoison+
rMut+
Clarity
rFire-

And then these would start at level 1 and increase at XL 8-15
Powered by death
Antennae (or sense surroundings)
Gelatinous body
Foul stench

Then I think there should be spawn mushroom based on the spawn jelly mutation, along with this the

[Guppyfry]

Sorry for second post, my tablet is making me crazy with losing the cursor.

I was going to add abilities:
Confusing touch at lvl 1
Breathe giant spore at high XL

Skills:
Even fighting and unarmed, minus 1 for melee weapons, -2 for ranged
-5 armor and dodging , +4 stealth and stab,
+ for necro, tmut, earth, - for fire, air, ice

Average str and into, low Dex

Low HP, average mp

Obviously this is geared towards a stabber, I imagine a mushroom wants to stay in the dark and has lots of talent to defeat foes before they know what is happening, but is extremely vulnerable if it has to have a "fair" fight

[palin]

Not adding max saprovore to a fungus?

[koolguydude2]

Wow, much better! See? I provided the base idea, and you made it awesome! Thank you!

[roctavian]

I think it's good to have a take-away that is more than "someone else had a better idea than me," so please note Guppyfry's use of paragraphs and how he split related information into different sections.

This makes even bad ideas readable, and makes collaboration easier.

[mumra]

What I'm not sure about is "why would I want to play this race"? In other words - what is the hook? "It's a mushroom" isn't good enough because that's just flavour and neither is "it's a stabber" because we already have races that make good stabbers. What distinguishes this race from others and makes it a unique and interesting play style?

[nicolae]

What I'm not sure about is "why would I want to play this race"? In other words - what is the hook? "It's a mushroom" isn't good enough because that's just flavour and neither is "it's a stabber" because we already have races that make good stabbers. What distinguishes this race from others and makes it a unique and interesting play style?

I dunno, it seems like it might be a fungi to play

[Guppyfry]

The niche is glass cannon with the stabbing/slowness twist. This overlaps with spriggan a lot though, except that you have more stealth, more offense (innate confuse+miasma) and even worse defense (slow+no even)

It overlaps more specifically with a naga of fedhas, which is how I tested it in wizmode with adding the mutation set. It was a lot more overpowered than I expected, but I couldn,t get slowness 3 on and I couldn't get rid of nag a scales (+AC) mutation. Spawnmushroom should actually be spawn ballistocyte, this is more appropriate power and style wise and removes the fed has power overlap.

I like stabbers and find slow players interesting, if infuriating. I don`t know that it warrants a new species that is ultimately very similar style wise to nag as though.

[mumra]

I dunno, it seems like it might be a fungi to play

Granted ... but it don't leave mushroom for manoeuvre.

[mumra]

The niche is glass cannon with the stabbing/slowness twist. This overlaps with spriggan a lot though, except that you have more stealth, more offense (innate confuse+miasma) and even worse defense (slow+no even)

It overlaps more specifically with a naga of fedhas, which is how I tested it in wizmode with adding the mutation set. It was a lot more overpowered than I expected, but I couldn,t get slowness 3 on and I couldn't get rid of nag a scales (+AC) mutation. Spawnmushroom should actually be spawn ballistocyte, this is more appropriate power and style wise and removes the fed has power overlap.

I like stabbers and find slow players interesting, if infuriating. I don`t know that it warrants a new species that is ultimately very similar style wise to nag as though.

Shiitakes and giggles aside ... what you're telling me here is what it's similar to. It's really unlikely a new race will get traction without featuring something radically different from existing ones, and not featured in any current mutations, god abilities, spells etc.; you could call this the gimmick or 'hook'. Composing a race entirely out of already existing mutations makes it functionally identical to any roughly similar race with the same set of mutations. Compare to, e.g., the proposals for a golem race featuring a brand new item-eating mechanic, or the new race Octopode which has its 8 ring slots.

I actually have a fairly interesting idea for how you could do a fungal race in a completely original way. Basically you would play a fungal colony so you actually exist on several squares. You can switch control to any of these fungi and each one has its own HP and MP bar (which have a very low maximum). Each one can move around very slowly but you can spread faster by spawning new fungi, possibly through various mechanisms (e.g. food, corpses). Individual fungi have a clock after which they shrivel and die so you have to keep making new ones. If they all die it's game over. How this would play I have no idea and it sounds horrible to code but it would be something new