New Species: Gargoyle

[njvack]

I like the "stones power up spells" (maybe not just earth) idea -- there are a finite number of stones in the dungeon, so it turns them into a long-term resource to be managed.

[Siegurt]

What about anchoring providing a small defense bonus (Like AC/EV maybe more esoteric bonuses like MR)? or possibly stealth and AC? (After all an unmoving statue like thing attached to a wall might very easily fool critters into thinking it wasn't a possible target)

As a passive ability it could trigger if you are next to a wall and haven't moved for a turn, and a defensive bonus would benefit any type of build, not only melee-attacking types.

Although on the other hand, i do like the strategic element in getting a bonus against things opposite the wall(s) you're attached to, attack speed would be a weird bonus for the whole "against the thing opposite the wall you're attached to" imho.

Both perhaps wouldn't be overpowered (A defensive bonus if you're attached, plus an attack bonus against the thing opposite the wall you're attached to)

[WalkerBoh]

You're right, attack speed makes little sense, and the ability loses much of its tactical Intrigue if there isn't a bonus against things opposite the wall.

I know it's a little bit radical, but what if you replaced one of gargoyle's aux attacks with anchoring and made the bonus straight +dam? Gargoyles having toenails never made sense to me anyways.

[Synaptic]

Just bumping because I was wondering what cling's effect/s is/are. I don't know how to read commits because I haven't looked into that stuff too heavily.

[Scrotar]

A suggestion to make an interesting Gargoyle mechanic.

You know how Lava Orcs become all hot and bothered in dangerous situations? Kinda the opposite for Gargoyles. So here's my idea.

On a spectrum of damage taken, the Gargoyle continually becomes more like a statue. Statue- slower, higher AC, lower EV, more resists, and even at very damaged state, regen. The Agate Snail has a similar concept, for comparisons sake. But we all know how easy those are to kill even when withdrawn, so at the extreme end of damage taken, I would think the AC would be extremely high and the regen would kick in with a good does of resistances to boot. But with low health, low EV and slow speed, survival is far from assured. It would make thematic sense both in being a yin to Lava Orc's yang, and also, think about the statue-esque nature of a Gargoyle. The more life it loses, the more it reverts to a lifeless statue, until when it dies it is just shattered. Also, you might appreciate that with this mechanic you would be an easy kill for an Ogre. Well that makes sense! Big clubs smash stone .

I am confident that this would be a viable mechanic if the number tweaking on the bonuses and maluses on the statue continuum was done well. It would certainly encourage a very different way of responding to imminent danger.

[Wark]

Just bumping because I was wondering what cling's effect/s is/are. I don't know how to read commits because I haven't looked into that stuff too heavily.

Clinging is basically like flying (it allows you to traverse lava/deep water); it is a passive ability, but for it to work you have to be directly adjacent to a wall. Apparently Gargoyles additionally receive stealth bonus when clinging:

  Code:

96d22f5 | Brendan Hickey | 2013-07-04 12:27:35 -0700

Gargoyle Clinging
Gargoyles wall cling and receive a stealth bonus for doing so.

[Bim]

Although I appreciate the improvements (trampling resistance was just lol) and it's much better than complete paralyzation, I do think a stealth bonus is a bit weird, considering that their main spell school is Earth which is incredibly noisy, and unarmed combat isn't really suited to stealth that much either.

I personally feel they need further differentation, as at the moment they're pretty much just a sludge elf without transmutations and better EE. I feel the best slot for them would be to have them as crawl's main 'defensive' class or heavy armour casters, with a high armour bonus and reasonable spell attributes, but low melee skills/evocations (now that they're more useful) and invocations. It's a niche that's not really filled which I feel would be pretty interesting.

[Synaptic]

Although I appreciate the improvements (trampling resistance was just lol) and it's much better than complete paralyzation, I do think a stealth bonus is a bit weird, considering that their main spell school is Earth which is incredibly noisy, and unarmed combat isn't really suited to stealth that much either.

I personally feel they need further differentation, as at the moment they're pretty much just a sludge elf without transmutations and better EE. I feel the best slot for them would be to have them as crawl's main 'defensive' class or heavy armour casters, with a high armour bonus and reasonable spell attributes, but low melee skills/evocations (now that they're more useful) and invocations. It's a niche that's not really filled which I feel would be pretty interesting.

I don't feel like a Gargoyle wearing heavy armour makes sense thematically, they're made of stone. They basically have a niche as UC/caster class and while I do like the idea of a heavy armor caster, that role is basically filled by hybrids who worship Chei.

[Siegurt]

Between passwall and petrify, earth is one of the better schools for stabbing, getting a stealth bonus works pretty darn well.

[XuaXua]

Clinging is basically like flying (it allows you to traverse lava/deep water); it is a passive ability, but for it to work you have to be directly adjacent to a wall. Apparently Gargoyles additionally receive stealth bonus when clinging:

  Code:

96d22f5 | Brendan Hickey | 2013-07-04 12:27:35 -0700

Gargoyle Clinging
Gargoyles wall cling and receive a stealth bonus for doing so.

Great. Now autotravel has to recognize it, not unlike Lava Orcs and lava.

[tasonir]

Looks like a fair amount of gargoyle changes have gone in ~26 hours ago.

Summary: start with 4 base AC, increasing by .6 per player level. Changed aptitudes to be better with armor and shields, worse with dodging, lower transmutations, better charms/necro.
Low hp - their niche is now low hp high ac.

Statue form keeps some of the base armor, how much I'm not sure. They get the 50% protection from torment that statue form has. The above summary is by no means guarenteed to be complete, I probably missed stuff.

I haven't played any of the changes yet but it seems interesting and I thought I'd point them out to hear other people's thoughts/playtesting experiences

[Kramin42]

Reading this thread, I thought of two ideas for the bonus vs. enemies opposite walls:

1. Knocking enemies back, or

2. Stunning enemies (basically a 1 or 2 turn paralyse).

Either of these would help reduce the hits you take when fighting multiple enemies, which makes corridors less necessary.

Knockback wouldn't be as much advantage against a single enemy so it could be better balance-wise.

[Bim]

New Gargolyes = Great fun. I think they're pretty much perfect in my opinion!!

I feel they're sufficiently different enough from most other species, and their low HP makes them not too overpowered. However, I feel some people may feel this is still a problem so my suggestion would be to have -3 translocations (-4?!).
This is pretty extreme, but it'd fit into the 'living stone' mechanic and would work well as a counterbalance to their 'armoured' abilities. with -3 (or -4) transloc you'd have to train a moderate amount to get blink up, and cblink would be incredibly difficult to get up to standard.

[Igxfl]

Summary: start with 4 base AC, increasing by .6 per player level.... better charms/necro.
Low hp - their niche is now low hp high ac.)

"Regeneration: The Species"

I'm eager to try it out.

[tasonir]

"Regeneration: The Species"

This is quite accurate. The low hp still poses a risk for a very long time, but eventually at high levels regeneration will smooth things out a lot.

[Sedrahl]

"Regeneration: The Species"

Doesn't Djinni already have that title?

Anyway, I'd just like to revisit the Statue Form subject for a moment. Is there any reason why we can't have Statue Form provide a movement delay instead of a slow effect? Would that make it too strong? I'm no greatplayer so I can't speak for balance, but so many of it's benefits are defeated by it's own downsides that even as a Gargoyle I don't like using it, which just seems silly.

[ackack]

. . . but so many of it's benefits are defeated by it's own downsides that even as a Gargoyle I don't like using it, which just seems silly.

Statue form is probably worse for gargoyles than just about any other species, as even at high earth magic there's a good chance you'll just make your ac worse, and you already have the rot and torment resistance. The unarmed boost seems quite unlikely to compensate for 1.5x attack speed.

I played a few new GrAK. Early game is very easy --- having 25-30 AC before Lair seems not particularly uncommon. The midgame was actually quite difficult for me, although how much of that was Gr and how much dubious choice is hard to discern. -2 HP apt and 35/15 defenses was nearly getting me killed on a regular basis in Vaults, though. Vaults was by far the hardest part of the game, though. After that I had Dodging up to speed and some actual Dex and then life was good.

[BlackSheep]

Statue form is probably worse for gargoyles than just about any other species, as even at high earth magic there's a good chance you'll just make your ac worse

This was recently tweaked.

[Sedrahl]

I feel like AC is the least of Statue Form's problems. The problem is that it nukes your speed (One of the most important stats in Crawl) and your EV (very bad on a low HP species) in exchange for high AC (which Gargoyles already have) and a percentile HP boost. (synergizes badly with Gargoyle's low MHP) Statue Form offers a lot of resistances, most of which Gargoyles now have innately. I guess at this point of development Gargoyles themselves are actually more like living statues, so it may be more sensible to simply disable Statue Form on them, as it's similar to casting Necromutation on a Mummy. (Except worse because Statue Form has much bigger disadvantages then Necromut.)

[rosstin]

Just tweak Statue Form's effect on Gargoyles so that it gives a more reasonable boost to the relevant stats?

[crate]

Honestly I am kind of surprised gargoyles are even allowed to cast statue form. I mean, aren't they a statue already, basically?

[tasonir]

With the recent addition of the large base AC, there's not much reason to use statue form on gargs. I'd rather see it improved for gargoyles, rather than being disabled. Wouldn't be too tough - all you'd need to do is remove the speed penalty, and it'd be worth using. Gargoyles, being made of stone all their lives, are used to the form and it doesn't hinder their movement!

As much as I'm in favor of this, it's probably easier & more likely to happen that the spell is just disabled. I wouldn't mind too much if statue form is disabled if stoneskin applies the "in statue form" ac bonus to gargoyles. Might make it really easy early on, but wouldn't impact mid/late game much.

[Sedrahl]

Honestly I am kind of surprised gargoyles are even allowed to cast statue form. I mean, aren't they a statue already, basically?

Technically they weren't "entirely" a statue or something, I think. Otherwise the whole self-petrification gimmick wouldn't have made any sense either. However, at their current stage in development they are essentially walking statues.

Flavor-wise I suppose they could be taking on some sort of "heavier" form of statue. Disabled Perma-Flight and the usual EV penalty (or perhaps reduced, I don't know) would work toward this end, as well as the slow being reduced to a movement penalty. Since Gargoyles currently have the majority of Statue's bonuses innately they should get pretty significant bonuses in other areas and/or significant reduction in it's penalties in exchange, at least if the intention is for them to even use it. Personally I think it makes more sense flavor-wise for a Gargoyle to use Statue Form for beefy melee than Dragon Form.

[Galefury]

They turn into a bigger statue that cant wear body armor.

[absolutego]

i'm with crate, just disable this.
there's no way to have it make sense unless you make gr noticeably worse or statue form gr too good (because of slow).

[TeshiAlair]

What if Statue Form was almost a replacement for their old self petrify- since they are just adding even more stone to themselves, it gives them a 10-25% temporary HP boost and slows them a bit, but doesn't give them stronger melee since they are already stone.

[ackack]

Statue form is probably worse for gargoyles than just about any other species, as even at high earth magic there's a good chance you'll just make your ac worse

This was recently tweaked.

The tweak was at the same time as the rest of the gargoyle changes. Somebody in IRC quoted the AC they were getting on their new Gr in statue form + stoneskin at 19 earth magic as 41, which sounds awfully close to what I was getting on my SE that used statue form at high earth magic. Looking at the commit, it seems like gargoyles get to keep their natural AC, but statue form is now 5 base AC plus the earth magic boosts (instead of 17). Thus Statue Form gives 12 less AC to gargoyles than any other species, on top of conferring no extra useful resistances. At max level, a Statue Form gargoyle will have 8 more AC than a different char with otherwise identical skills and equipment; at level 14 or so, gargoyles have the same AC in Statue Form as anybody else, and are in fact worse at lower levels (which is probably not too big a deal.) If your earth magic is high and you don't have tricked out armour (lighter armour, not fully enchanted, low Armour skill), it will still improve your AC, so that part is inaccurate.

[BlackSheep]

Statue form is probably worse for gargoyles than just about any other species, as even at high earth magic there's a good chance you'll just make your ac worse

This was recently tweaked.

The tweak was at the same time as the rest of the gargoyle changes. Somebody in IRC quoted the AC they were getting on their new Gr in statue form + stoneskin at 19 earth magic as 41, which sounds awfully close to what I was getting on my SE that used statue form at high earth magic. Looking at the commit, it seems like gargoyles get to keep their natural AC, but statue form is now 5 base AC plus the earth magic boosts (instead of 17). Thus Statue Form gives 12 less AC to gargoyles than any other species, on top of conferring no extra useful resistances. At max level, a Statue Form gargoyle will have 8 more AC than a different char with otherwise identical skills and equipment; at level 14 or so, gargoyles have the same AC in Statue Form as anybody else, and are in fact worse at lower levels (which is probably not too big a deal.) If your earth magic is high and you don't have tricked out armour (lighter armour, not fully enchanted, low Armour skill), it will still improve your AC, so that part is inaccurate.

Thanks for agreeing with me, I guess?

[ackack]

Thanks for agreeing with me, I guess?

--- The tweak occurred in concert with the other new Gr changes. This is not the likely implication somebody would take from your comment.

--- While Statue Form will often increase your AC, it is less likely to do so for gargoyles than any other species. The important part of the comment --- that Statue Form is worse for gargoyles than any other species --- is still accurate.

[Bloax]

You might have at most 8 more AC, but let's not forget that you're both slowed and left with a huge hit to your EV.

And while statue form is extremely good due to its offensive capabilities, it's still pretty bad for a race that's already an AC glass cannon.
In fact it's so bad that I didn't even use it on my 15-rune GrMo, simply because it's not worth the loss of most armour slots (having randart gloves/boots isn't all that uncommon after some acquirement scrolls) -
- in addition to its lackluster bonus to hp for the huge EV hit.
And EV is exactly what carried that character to its victory, since gargoyles already have huge AC that mixes terrifyingly well with good EV.

[XuaXua]

Can gargoyles kill themselves easily with self-LRD, and does shatter hurt them?

[rosstin]

I'm not sure about Gargoyles, but if you cast Lee's Rapid Deconstruction on Crawl ITSELF, you get this:

[zugundertherug]

Having recently won with a GrEE just want to say that I like the species. The biggest perks (AC boost and torment resist imo) are balanced by low hp. Flight is also nice and not given too early. Only possible issue is that the LRD/shatter vulnerablility never comes into play because by the time you're encountering LRD/shatter you have lots of AC which counters LRD and you're flying which counters shatter. However by that point you're probably spamming shatter yourself (if you're an EE) so the point's moot. Unless there's something other then deep troll earth mages or Jorgun that cast these spells?

[Amnesiac]

I think it's overpowered. -2 HP won't do much if you don't receive much damage anyway and the most huge damage is halved. Aux attacks, too. And lots of resistances(no rMut, though, even though i'd make sense). I tried it with Fi bg today and I just chewed through everything I encountered until lair 8(sigmund, all kinds of frogs, death yaks, elephants, minotaur, hydrae). I died(to a boulder beetle), but that was because I didn't care for that character. I'll try it once again later today with a background a like more(like As or some other stabbing oriented), but I can say without it that a bit less HP and A LOT of resistances and other bonuses is better then just less hp, that most races that have good apts to make a stabber have.

[crate]

gr isnt overpowered imo, my grie felt actually worse than a huie would have

[Sandman25]

Well, DEFi is worse than HuFi too. I think IE is not a recommended background for Gr (not sure because I've never played the species)

[crate]

IE is recommended, Gr has just fine IE apts (in fact better apts than human!). It was entirely the low hp that made it feel not great.

[Bim]

I've played quite a few games with Gr now and I don't think it's at all overpowered. It's not a particularly weak species, but I don't think we need any more of those (we really, really don't). Although they can quite happily mash through a lot of lower level stuff, their low hp means that you can mess up really badly (/more than usual) if you get into a bad situation/something that ignores AC.

It's also really, really fun to play a heavy armour caster.

[joellercoaster]

Gr now feels medium-powered (little high, little low), but also like it makes Hells and Pan slightly less fiddly with the AC, flight and resistances (and by which point the HP matters less).

Overall, seems good.

[XuaXua]

Having the wings and the cloak is weird. I'd say get rid of the ability to wear cloaks after reaching wing-use level, but Draconians retain it, and it's pretty much their signature armour, so...

[1010011010]

Having the wings and the cloak is weird. I'd say get rid of the ability to wear cloaks after reaching wing-use level, but Draconians retain it, and it's pretty much their signature armour, so...

I find it weird how although draconians and gargoyles have similar body shapes including wings, gargoyles have no amour restriction.

[TeshiAlair]

I always pictured draconians as much less humanoid than gargoyles so while a gargoyle could wear mail as a breastplate, it would be way too loose on a snakelike younger draconian and too small for an older, colorful one.

[Siegurt]

This is what I think of for a Gargoyle in armour:

[tasonir]

I think the draconian restriction on wearing armor is as much about pride as practicality. Dragon scales are seen as the best armor around, and draconians instinctually rely on it, rather than wearing armor. Gargoyles are more humanoid, and consider it natural to augment their own stone bodies with additional protection.

In reality armor could be made that would fit any species. I think crawl gets around this by claiming only standard sized armors appear in the dungeon, and anything that would require custom tailoring just doesn't exist, unless it's made by enchant armor scrolls (ie, magic). I don't know if gargoyles are more "standardly shaped" than draconians, but apparently it is so.

[Cheibrodos]

I imagine draconians have big scales sticking out everywhere, which would make moving around in armor uncomfortable.

Gargoyle is just a guy but he's made of rocks.

[XuaXua]

It is not a question about all armour, just cloaks.

[Arrhythmia]

Species with wings take the small knife they use for butchering and cut elegant and functional holes in the back.

Artefacts, of course, are already made with holes.

[XuaXua]

Is the consensus on statue form + gargoyles one of "do it" or "don't bother" and why? From a 1000 foot view, it seems redundant.

[MoogleDan]

A mid-level gargoyle in medium armor can be surrounded by stone giants and bonk 'em to death one by one hardly taking a hit. I really don't see why you'd want to slow yourself to achieve the exact same thing.

[brendan]

It is not a question about all armour, just cloaks.

Write a patch that disables cloaks while Gargoyles are flying. Everyone is going to love that.

While crawl strives to 'make sense', it is not a simulation game (see: Dwarf Fortress). Instead the game makes sense by being consistent in its interface and attempting to minimize the number of gotchas. If this is still grinding your gears, just pretend they're wearing capes instead of cloaks.