Racial/Fighting HP

[KoboldLord]

it is a constant offset based on class and iirc it already happens (no multiplication, no curve changing)

Just checked in wizard mode, and it looks like fighters have 7hp over wizards, independent of skills. This 7hp kicker is the same from 1st-level to 27th-level, and regardless of fighting skill. I never noticed it until you pointed it out.

That strikes me as odd, but I guess it's trivial enough that I don't care.

[TGW]

New Class HP = [(Old Class HP)(27-XL) + 10(XL-1)]/26

[danr]

I need that formula explained more - is this the HP gain per XL?

Please give some examples.

It does seem a bit of a departure to have an unalterable characteristic set by class.

[TGW]

it already is

[MrMisterMonkey]

(the only way it makes sense is as total hp)

[wesleyshaver]

Instead of giving HP/MP bonuses at game start based on class why not give them based on STR and INT? This would accomplish DPEG's stated goal of making sure melee fighters have more HP without tying HP to Fighting skill (melee fighters would pump STR) and it would ensure that fighting classes with their higher starting STR would have more HP than spellcasters with their higher INT and MP. So for symmetry's sake you could eliminate the Spellcasing based bonus to MP and replace it with an INT bonus to MP.

[ryak]

Instead of giving HP/MP bonuses at game start based on class why not give them based on STR and INT? This would accomplish DPEG's stated goal of making sure melee fighters have more HP without tying HP to Fighting skill (melee fighters would pump STR) and it would ensure that fighting classes with their higher starting STR would have more HP than spellcasters with their higher INT and MP. So for symmetry's sake you could eliminate the Spellcasing based bonus to MP and replace it with an INT bonus to MP.

Because it's too big of change and everyone will have a slightly different opinion. We will each present a few proposals and nothing will get done.

Better to make the small change first then work from there.

[GermanJoey]

Just to add my two cents in here: part of the problem with fighting skill is that its too easy to train for casters, I think. Just learn spammals, turn off your weapon and summoning skills, and play whack-a-mole with your summoned chumps. And there you go, most of your XP pool goes into fighting. There's even tricks to improve the efficiency of that!

[vintermann]

it is a constant offset based on class and iirc it already happens (no multiplication, no curve changing)

Just checked in wizard mode, and it looks like fighters have 7hp over wizards, independent of skills. This 7hp kicker is the same from 1st-level to 27th-level, and regardless of fighting skill. I never noticed it until you pointed it out.

That strikes me as odd, but I guess it's trivial enough that I don't care.

It's kind of understandable, since one of Crawl's design ideas is that class should matter little compared to where you take your character. A wizard which never casts a spell, just plays like a fighter, will end up with only 7hp less than a fighter.

If we go with danr's proposal or a variant of it, even this little class difference will be eliminated. A wizard and a fighter with the same size, robustness, strength and fighting skill will have the same HP.

[TGW]

My proposal evens out the class HP difference by XL 27. :S

[(Old Class HP)(27-XL) + 10(XL-1)]/26 + Racial HP*(1+fighting/18)

(Old Class HP being the current class HP modifier, a constant; and Racial HP being the current HP curve determined by race.)

[galehar]

My proposal evens out the class HP difference by XL 27. :S

[(Old Class HP)(27-XL) + 10(XL-1)]/26 + Racial HP*(1+fighting/18)

(Old Class HP being the current class HP modifier, a constant; and Racial HP being the current HP curve determined by race.)

The evening out of the class hp is a nice touch, but not necessary.
It doesn't solve the fact that squishy races need to train fighting to avoid being one-shotted to death. It just makes it less efficient. So this proposal needs to also raises racial hp. In that case, maybe we can divide the fighting bonus by 27 instead of 18.
It would be nice to have a chart that compares hp of current system and new system for fighting =0, =xl/3, =2*xl/3, =xl, for each race. So we can see the hp for each playstyle.

[danr]

My proposal would not eliminate class HP differences. Classes have widely different starting Str stats, and casters have a high need for Int increases. A DEWz would never catch up with a MDBe in terms of Str even if they put all their stat increases into Str.

[vintermann]

I meant directly from class itself, danr.

[danr]

Okay, I see.

I think with my system you could still assign some starting HP based on class as well.

[galehar]

Another idea discussed on IRC:

Change the HP formula from (Fighting * XL) / 5 to (Fighting^2) / 5.

[acvar]

Another idea discussed on IRC:

Change the HP formula from (Fighting * XL) / 5 to (Fighting^2) / 5.

So does this make grinding up fighting less appealing since the gain is much smaller at low levels, or does it encourage casters to simply train fighting up even more to see a real gain? I would guess the former, but I am often shown that game theory does not alway work when you involve humans.

If it is the opinion of the developers that caster should train up fighting a bit to give themselves a few more HP (seems so from numerous posts in the past) then this will not fly. Spellcasters are going to cry foul, because they will be taking a significant hit on HP. I personally like it.

[galehar]

The idea is to make training just a bit of fighting less appealing. You'll either train it or not. We should probably compensate by giving everyone a bit more base HP.

[sanka]

I've already mentioned that in the previous tread, but maybe nobody read it there, so I repeat.

I do not really like the idea that hp from fighting is changing by species. (Even that I do like KoboldLord's idea because that's simple and intuitive - it would be a huge help for beginners.)

I think this proposed change has drawbacks and do not solve the original prloblem.

The hp difference between species will be less when no fighting is trained (casters) and will be more if fighting is trained (fighters). This is not good, the result will not be that casters won't train fighting if they want more hp - the result will be that casters will train it more, and fragile fighters (kenku, kobold), will be much weaker. I do not like either.

What I propose, is that do NOT increase hp gained from fighting skill with character level. Give the skill a progressing hp bonus instead. This way either somebody trains it, and than get hp bonus that matters on a given level, or not.
My proposal: simple replace the "Character level" in the hp gained from fighting formula with MIN(Character level, Fighting).
(I use the min because otherwise low level fighters may have too many hit points. But if you think that would be a good change - so fighters would be much easier early, maybe with even removing the starting hp bonus, then simply replacing Character level with the fighting skill may work.)

[sanka]

Sorry, maybe I did not read the last proposal. It seems very close to my proposal, altough I'm not familiar with the current formula.

Also, giving a little bit more hp to everyone to help casters, would be good.

And completly independent from this, but I do like KoboldLord's idea about the racial hp mutaions. I support move the racial hp and mana differences to mutations, and drop the class hp differences. That would make crawl much more consistent and easier for beginners - I remember when I was a beginner, I tweaked a lot with wizard mode to find out how much hp I would have with different species and classes.

[FlyingPants]

Perhaps weapon skills should give cross training bonuses to fighting. And then nerf the skill/global aptitudes so it takes more XP to level it up. Maybe do the same thing with dodge/armor/shield too.

That way melee fighters with high weapon skills will more rapidly advance in fighting.

[galehar]

Here's a simple solution:

All races get the same base hp per level, and the same hp bonus for fighting skill.

Deep elves and spriggans start with Frail 2.

Trolls have Robust 3.

Other races fall somewhere in between. These are racial mutations that cannot be removed.

If we want the 'real' Frail and Robust mutations to stack on top of these, just give the racial ones a different name.

I have initially expressed that I disliked this idea, but after having spent some time crushing the HP numbers, I've changed my mind.
My proposal for the new HP formula is the following:

• Make base HP linear: 10 + 5.5 * (XL -1)
• Change the HP from fighting formula to (fighting * XL) / 8
• Give robust or frail mutation to all races that need it (spriggan get frail3, not frail2)

Here is some discussion on the wiki and some charts.
It already has received some positive feedback on IRC.
Regarding mutations, I wouldn't rename them, because players could get confused with 2 different mutations with the exact same effect. Instead, I'd change the description to say that you feel less frail, or more robust when subject to the temporary robust mutation for example.

[absolutego]

it looks like it works fine, it's very clear, and you don't have to go to the wiki to check the numbers. in favour.

[KoboldLord]

I'm in favor. It's simple, transparent, and gets the intended job done.

[sanka]

I like the idea of the racial hp mutations. However, I do not like the current proposal.

I agree that even the weakest caster with no fighting skill should be able to survive the strongest attack in the game, so giving ~120 hp at level 27 to deep elves seems good to me. (Felids are an excpetion of course.)

Maybe I'm wrong but judging from the charts this seems to be a buff for the casters and a nerf to fighters (except troll fighters). This is not good - casters are already stronger (even with the heavy armour changes).

Also, I really liked that in crawl you can play fragile races as fighters, because you can gain a lot of hp from the fighting skill. Of course I know that this fact creates an other balance issue - fighting is a very useful skill for everyone. But solving this issue by giving up the advantage of the current system does not seems good to me.

I do not like that the new proposed racial hp mutaions (at leas in the charts) affects hp from fighting. This makes races who get more racial hp even stronger when they are fighters, and races who get less even weaker. I do not feel that the difference between a minotaur and a deep elf fighter should be larger than now.

I do not really understand the arguments against the "quadratic" (or other power) proposal. The fact that early levels of fighting are not as useful maybe true, but I do not see this as a problem. Maybe optimal players would switch the skill off early - and then what? This is a much smaller issue then the others.
Also, I do not think it's even true. The hp from the fighting skill is much more useful at higher xp levels with the current system (because it also depends on the level). With fragile casters I usually do not start to train fighting early because I want the extra 3 hp immedately, but because it's much easier to train early. With victory dancing you can train your fighting skill higher than your level early on, at least with some species/class combination. This would give you more hp than now, so in this case the skill would be more useful early than now.

The fighting skill with quadratic hp would be a little similar to the conjuration skill. At level 27 a conjuration skill of 5 is not really worth much. You will not do enough damage with any of your spells to anyone. You need the high skill or you need nothing. (Mephitic cloud may change this, but that's problematic in itself.)
Early on +10 or +20 hp matters, but when you have 120 base hp, not so much. I agree that the exact numbers must be tweaked.

[KoboldLord]

Also, I really liked that in crawl you can play fragile races as fighters, because you can gain a lot of hp from the fighting skill. Of course I know that this fact creates an other balance issue - fighting is a very useful skill for everyone. But solving this issue by giving up the advantage of the current system does not seems good to me.

I do not like that the new proposed racial hp mutaions (at leas in the charts) affects hp from fighting. This makes races who get more racial hp even stronger when they are fighters, and races who get less even weaker. I do not feel that the difference between a minotaur and a deep elf fighter should be larger than now.

The fragility is irrelevant in the current system, because fighting hp dwarfs the racial differences. As long as you train fighting, you neutralize the hp penalty of an allegedly frail race and keep the bonuses that it was supposed to compensate for without having to pay for them. And on the flip side, an allegedly robust race has to religiously train fighting just to keep up with the deep elves, and at the end of this process doesn't actually end up significantly more durable.

Why shouldn't a minotaur be better at fighting than a deep elf? A deep elf caster will get earlier access to literally every single spell that can generate compared to a minotaur caster. Why should the minotaur fighter's racial hp bonus be negligible compared to the fighting hp they both share?

With fragile casters I usually do not start to train fighting early because I want the extra 3 hp immedately, but because it's much easier to train early.

This is not true, and it would be nice if people would stop saying this.

There is a minor training malus if you have other skills trained, but you get more xp per kill later in the game and you spend more on individual instances of training. You also have better equipment that lets you safely melee more types of monsters. The xp pool has never been the main factor that restricts training of fighting; the more limited resource is the supply of rats and bats that you can safely beat up. Later on you can start fighting yaks and minor demons in melee, both of which are plentiful.

[Jeremiah]

It might be worth pointing out that anything that reduces the HP gain from fighting will be a nerf to species that have low racial HP but can make respectable fighters anyway due to their good fighting aptitude and/or good weapon skill aptitudes - kobolds and kenku would be the obvious examples.

Not that this would necessarily be a bad thing, but it's something that should be considered when deciding how to go about this.

[sanka]

Why shouldn't a minotaur be better at fighting than a deep elf? A deep elf caster will get earlier access to literally every single spell that can generate compared to a minotaur caster. Why should the minotaur fighter's racial hp bonus be negligible compared to the fighting hp they both share?

The minotaur is already a much much better fighter, because of the racial aptitudes, especially the fighting aptitude. So a minotaur will reach the minimum weapon delay and higher fighting skills-hp earlier. Later on - well, a minotaur can train spellcasting skills up to 27. She will be weaker, but this says more about IQ is a much more important stat for spellcasting than str and dex for fighting - so the deep elf will keep more advantage, even if the racial mp modifier is not important late game.

I simply feel that double penalties - bad fighting aptitude and much less hp from the skill is not good. Some transfer from the skill hp to racial is ok - but affecting skill hp by race is too much. A deep elf berserker is not easy (altough maybe I'm not a good player), and altough I don't think it should be easier, it also should not be even harder. Also, there are low hp good fighters now - kenku supposed to be a good fighter, as Jeremiah has pointed out. They are still much weaker fighters than a minotaur with the current system.

With fragile casters I usually do not start to train fighting early because I want the extra 3 hp immedately, but because it's much easier to train early.

This is not true, and it would be nice if people would stop saying this.

There is a minor training malus if you have other skills trained, but you get more xp per kill later in the game and you spend more on individual instances of training. You also have better equipment that lets you safely melee more types of monsters. The xp pool has never been the main factor that restricts training of fighting; the more limited resource is the supply of rats and bats that you can safely beat up. Later on you can start fighting yaks and minor demons in melee, both of which are plentiful.

I did not mean the xp penalty - sorry for my expressions, english is not my first language. I usually start to train fighting early because early on you can find a lot of rats and such, and with a good weapon you can easily kill them. Later on there are a lot of dangerous monsters. Maybe it's not an optimal startegy, but with a fragile caster I usually start training fighting as soon as I find a good branded short blade or something. With some skills in the weapon skill and some fighting skills you can kill a lot more monsters, so training fighting further is easier. Yaks are dangerous even at level 15 if you have no skill. They can do a lot of damage sometimes, and you can never now what monster comes in the next corner to join the fight. (Of course a good caster has escape options - so it's possible to do, but I find it easier to start earlier.) And altough there are a lot of easy monster later, there are a lot of hard ones also, and I usually do not want to train fighting even with a rat when a dragon is near.

Maybe I'm wrong - I'm not a very good player. But all I wanted to say is that there are reasons to start training fighting sooner than you really need the hp bonus - to have it when you need it. With a deep elf wizard I usually do not miss the extra hp from fighting till level 15 or so, or at least it's not very hard to reach without any fighting training at all. But usually I find that it's much more cumbersome to train fighting then, and not beacuse there's not enough xp. (Of course it helps if I play with an ice caster - when ozucubu's armour is strong, it gives enough protection with regeneration to start training fighting later.)

[galehar]

I like the idea of the racial hp mutations.
...
I do not like that the new proposed racial hp mutations (at leas in the charts) affects hp from fighting.

But that's the whole point of the mutation, so those 2 sentences contradict themselves.
Also, keep victory dancing out of the discussion, because we are planning to remove it. Imagine you have full control of where your XP is going.

It might be worth pointing out that anything that reduces the HP gain from fighting will be a nerf to species that have low racial HP but can make respectable fighters anyway due to their good fighting aptitude and/or good weapon skill aptitudes - kobolds and kenku would be the obvious examples.

Sure, we might need to adjust the fighting aptitude of some species to compensate. Ko already have +1 and Ke 0, so it's not too bad.

[absolutego]

DEBe is a combination that you would expect to be terrible. I don't think it's a problem to make it even worse.

precisely. if anything it should be harder. playing a DE as a hybrid or a straight fighter should be a challenge, and it is because the apts don't favour it. but HP-wise, you currently get plenty (200+) by the end of a 3-5 runer. this is a minor point, but as far as i'm concerned it makes the game richer. the same stands for kobolds or spriggans (KoBe's and SpBe's, if you will), if they take a hit.

But that's the whole point of the mutation, so those 2 sentences contradict themselves.

to be fair, they can be independent, even if they aren't in your current proposal (which as i said looks fine to me). the transparency gained by presenting racial HP as a mutation, as opposed to the current system (e.g., and i'm quoting from the wiki: "you gain the base max HP on every level, minus 1 on levels 2-16, and minus 1 more on every 3 levels starting at level 3"), is already pretty damn significant. the point of it all was to switch HP gains away from fighting towards race, yes, but if the nerf to fighting is too strong you can also bump its HP gains later on without messing with racial gains.

[TGW]

(fighting^2)/5 is a bad curve; use something like (fighting^1.6)/1.3 instead

really though you should use the TGW HP Formula™

[galehar]

(fighting^2)/5 is a bad curve; use something like (fighting^1.6)/1.3 instead

really though you should use the TGW HP Formula™

Have you read the thread and the wiki page? I've already proposed a different solution (racial HP linear, fighting hp = (fighting*XL)/8 and everybody gets intrinsic frail/robust mutations). Sorry, can't remember, what was your formula?

[galehar]

Forgot to post it here, but the new HP formula has been in trunk for some time. I changed it again tonight so the species modifier isn't treated as a racial/frail mutation, and therefore, isn't displayed in the A screen.

[galehar]

Even if it didn't provided any HP, it would still be worth it to train some melee for pure casters. You don't want to waste your MP on trivial monsters if some nasty one is lurking around the corner.

[dpeg]

minmay: But how is this new behaviour? As long as we have a skill that governs HP gain, you get this effect.

[evilmike]

It's not new behaviour, but it's not really a bad thing either. As galehar notes it's always good to have some melee ability, and besides that, getting a couple of levels in fighting is pretty hard *not* to do by just playing normally. And if you really want to play a pure caster, you can get away with having 0 fighting (although this is sub-optimal play). A level 27 deep elf will have plenty of HP now with no fighting investment.

I think using the term "no-brainer" (which, at this point, is little more than an overused buzzword) is disingenuous here, especially in light of the recent changes to the HP formula.

[KoboldLord]

Lower-depth monsters can be made trivial faster by investing in the cheaper levels of your fighting skills. Having your weapon skill at 10 and fighting at 6 in the early Vaults isn't going to cost you any levels of your primary damage magic skill, because skills are crazy-expensive at such high levels. But they'll allow you to swat down slime creatures and yaktaurs with Erica's flaming scimitar so you have full mp for any stone giants that show up.

[Frandu]

Hi, as a rather casual kind of player, my big issue isn't with all the formulas and stuff (although i wouldnt mind having easier access to info from within the game, but whatever, not a big issue to play game with browser open), but rather with the actual training. Burning down my first pack of death yaks is one of the worst things that ever happens since i'll have to take a break from having fun for 5-10 minutes to beat up summoned rats or imps. And since i can rarely play more than 20-25 minutes at a time well... that's a significant portion of my playtime gone.

Anyway, i'd propose that swinging at nothing be usable to train fighting and weapons, just like casting at nothing works. Converting cooked yaks into spellcasting skills takes me 30-60 seconds (cast a few spells, press 5, repeat) while converting them to fighting takes 5-10 minutes (summon thing, hit thing 2-3 times, repeat, press 5 to regain mp, repeat).

Sounds reasonable?

ps: now that i think of it maybe adding a link to the knowledge page and wiki page from the start menu wouldn't be a bad idea for new players like me

[Astarotte]

Don't worry, we've finally stopped pretending and devs are working on switching to a training system where you can put your XP where you want it without having to do silly tricks like bashing summoned rats.

It's already decided so I sohould just shut up, but those silly tricks and victory dancing etc., even if sometimes boring and time-consuming, are IMO what gives a flavour of "reality" and organicity to the game, especially to the magic system.

In roguelikes like Angband you have the success percentage of each spell plainly displayed, and even if it's useful, baring the fact that what happens is just the result of an algorithm detracts to the flavour. In Crawl you are "Terrible" at casting a spell, or you can do it "perfect"ly. The math is hidden!

Ok, aptitudes are in numerical forum, the xp pool is, the skill level and (percentage%) too. But just automatically setting the percentage of your xp pool to invest in a skill seems flavourless and dull.

tl;dr : I like victory dancing lol.

[galehar]

It's already decided so I sohould just shut up, but those silly tricks and victory dancing etc., even if sometimes boring and time-consuming, are IMO what gives a flavour of "reality" and organicity to the game, especially to the magic system.

tl;dr : I like victory dancing lol.

The new system will be optional. By default, you'll still train the skills you use, but they will be instantly trained when XP is gained. No XP pool and no VD. I think the immersion and flavour will just be better.