Getting rid of Fighting.

[galehar]

What I'd like to see is Fighting's link to HP have some racial difference. It would make more sense for things like Minotaurs to get more HP out of increasing Fighting than Spriggans. This would provide more of a sense of accomplishment and "tankishness" to the brute strength species that Fighting (or at least the "max fighting as possible" strategy) is supposed to offer.

That's exactly what has been suggested by tgw in the other thread (with a formula). This idea is the one the most likely to go in in my opinion. We would probably need to raise racial hp a bit to compensate.

[vintermann]

Fighting should not go, nor should spellcasting, because having a base skill like this is basically sensible. It allows for real differences. The ogre's spc/spell skill gap is interesting (or would have been, if ogres didn't generally suck). Imagine a "swashbuckler" race, that had great weapon skills but poor fighting, wouldn't that be interesting?

If not, shouldn't we rather rethink the lines between base skill and specialization so that it becomes meaningful, rather than get rid of the distinction in a fit of deletionism?

Right now, specialization vs. generalism is a meaningful choice for casters, because of resistances of various sorts. Weapon specialization is not a choice, because you will basically have to stick to one to win: the question is just which.

If creatures had weapon resistances as well (pierce resistance, blunt resistance, slash resistance - or abilities like the hydra's head regeneration) there would be more interesting choices - and training the base skill or not would be a more significant choice.

[Cybermg]

Here's my analysis of fighting after putting a lot of thought into the matter.

-The skill is "too good" relative to other skills. Some proof of this is that if people were given arbitrary control over their skill points distribution, the optimal strategy would be to put a decent amount of points into Fighting (probably around 10-15 for pure casters, 27 for melee characters). Note that these numbers also reflect other aspects of the game, like the fact that you only really need level 6 or 7 spells for a regular win, so more HP is the best marginal improvement you can make. Two problems come out of this - choosing to train fighting (at least a little bit) is a "no-brainer," and fighting being such a necessary skill for even magic classes is fairly unintuitive.

Perhaps something to aim for is that optimal play for the purest of pure casters would mean finishing the game at 0 fighting skill, mostly pure casters with just a little skill, all of the way down the line to pure melee aiming for full fighting skill (as it currently is) (instead of the current optimal range being maybe 12 - 27). To summarize, optimal ending fighting skill for a character should be roughly proportional to how fighting oriented a character is (instead of being roughly proportional in the range of 12-27). This solves both problems because not every character should train fighting (it's no longer a no-brainer), and the amount of fighting a character should train now seems more appropriate to their role.

The hard part about this is ensuring that a particular skill range for fighting is actually optimal - that the super pure caster (for example) actually shouldn't ever train fighting, that the extra HP even going from level 0 to level 1 just isn't worth the cost. To do this (unfortunately), you've got to look at marginal utilities and marginal costs. Resolving the issue becomes a matter of just tuning the equations the right way. However, to give a qualitative answer on which direction we should go, I think that characters should receive much more HP than they do currently at low fighting skill (so heavy casters won't need to train it). The easy answer here would be that characters at 0 fighting skill should actually have the same HP as they currently get at 12 fighting skill (or whatever fighting skill is optimal for the purest of pure caster) - this actually seems to bring things pretty close to having the full 0-27 skill range as possible optimal choices.

-The other problem with fighting isn't actually just a problem with fighting, it's a general problem with victory dancing. To give the general idea, optimal play with a character involves a lot of tedious training because fighting isn't a skill that you can train at will (unlike magic). A solution here might actually be to let ctrl+direction swinging train fighting (this would also have to be clearly presented in the interface as something to do). I think people have been scared of this because of my problem #1 - that fighting is too good. But fix problem #1 and suddenly this solution doesn't seem that bad!

---
Alright, this is a lot of text, so I'm going to summarize my proposals at the bottom here. Read the rest of my post for rationale.

1. HP at Fighting 0 should be bumped up to where HP is now at Fighting 12 (or whatever skill level a pure caster would currently never want to advance beyond). Benefits from fighting should be rescaled appropriately. (note, this does make the game a bit easier - overall experience gain might have to be tweaked).
2. Now that the Fighting skill is no longer overpowered, allow at-will training of fighting with ctrl+direction swinging to bring it more in line with spellcasting, and remove the need to tediously grind against enemies.

[Cybermg]

With all of that said, I'm not so sure I really want things to change. Training fighting to the obligatory low teens is actually a fairly interesting mini-game that involves a lot of interesting decisions and risks. Giving casters the low teens number automatically feels too much like giving them a free ride. It's not exactly unthematic that a caster has to spend a little time in battle so that they can survive a crystal spear later on.

The biggest problem I have with the current system is simply the lack of transparency. It's not obvious that every single character SHOULD spend their time on the fighting mini-game to get their skill level to at least the low teens.

[MrMisterMonkey]

on the "free ride" business, making optimal play (grinding up fighting) tedious (by requiring them to go through the training minigame, whacking spammals and rats and whatnot) is bad design


As for fixing the problem of grinding fighting, I see two ways to approach it:

Fix fighting:
The easiest way to make it optimal for pure casters not to train fighting, as I see it, is simply to remove hp benefits from fighting, which then of course raises the issue of them having just as much hp as melee characters, so there would have to be something else here (like hp from strength, assuming casters would need to consistently raise Int to be able to sustain purity, which is false, so I guess the solution would have to be slightly more complex).
acvar's proposal goes extremely in this direction
basing hp gains from fighting on racial hp goes a bit in this direction

Fix grinding:
If it's impossible to artificially train fighting, meaning it would actually be a good representation of fightiness, there's no need to worry about it.
Of course, this is probably impossible without overhauling far too much of crawl.

[7hm]

on the "free ride" business, making optimal play (grinding up fighting) tedious (by requiring them to go through the training minigame, whacking spammals and rats and whatnot) is bad design


As for fixing the problem of grinding fighting, I see two ways to approach it:

Fix fighting:
The easiest way to make it optimal for pure casters not to train fighting, as I see it, is simply to remove hp benefits from fighting, which then of course raises the issue of them having just as much hp as melee characters, so there would have to be something else here (like hp from strength, assuming casters would need to consistently raise Int to be able to sustain purity, which is false, so I guess the solution would have to be slightly more complex).
acvar's proposal goes extremely in this direction
basing hp gains from fighting on racial hp goes a bit in this direction

Fix grinding:
If it's impossible to artificially train fighting, meaning it would actually be a good representation of fightiness, there's no need to worry about it.
Of course, this is probably impossible without overhauling far too much of crawl.

You know, you can actually get fighting up without grinding with spammals (such as, you know, by using fighting when it makes sense, rather than spamming spells just cuz you can).

The fact some people grind out fighting with spammals (and then complain about it) is a problem with them moreso than with the game.

Also

1. HP at Fighting 0 should be bumped up to where HP is now at Fighting 12 (or whatever skill level a pure caster would currently never want to advance beyond). Benefits from fighting should be rescaled appropriately. (note, this does make the game a bit easier - overall experience gain might have to be tweaked).

This doesnt just make the game somewhat it easier, it makes it a ton easier. It also buffs casters more than melee because its a larger proportional change for them.

Just make manual of fighting more common or something and be done with it.

[Cybermg]

You know, you can actually get fighting up without grinding with spammals (such as, you know, by using fighting when it makes sense, rather than spamming spells just cuz you can).

The fact some people grind out fighting with spammals (and then complain about it) is a problem with them moreso than with the game.

Also

1. HP at Fighting 0 should be bumped up to where HP is now at Fighting 12 (or whatever skill level a pure caster would currently never want to advance beyond). Benefits from fighting should be rescaled appropriately. (note, this does make the game a bit easier - overall experience gain might have to be tweaked).

This doesnt just make the game somewhat it easier, it makes it a ton easier. It also buffs casters more than melee because its a larger proportional change for them.

Just make manual of fighting more common or something and be done with it.

I actually haven't heard of the spammals strategy; it's pretty bad that it actually exists. If there's currently a (readily available) way to voluntarily train fighting, you might as well just make it easier with the ctrl+direction training.

Agreed that casters are the last thing that should be buffed. But if all casters are going to spend exp grinding their fighting to 12 through some automatic means (like spammals), then you might as well just give it to them for free, and subtract out the exp they would've spent by slightly decreasing overall exp gains (which I admit is difficult).

edit: Of course, HP level should start exactly where they are now, and gradually increase such that fighting 0 at level 27 is the current fighting 12 at level 27. I'm not saying that character should start with the equivalent of 12 fighting skill.

[szanth]

on the "free ride" business, making optimal play (grinding up fighting) tedious (by requiring them to go through the training minigame, whacking spammals and rats and whatnot) is bad design


As for fixing the problem of grinding fighting, I see two ways to approach it:

Fix fighting:
The easiest way to make it optimal for pure casters not to train fighting, as I see it, is simply to remove hp benefits from fighting, which then of course raises the issue of them having just as much hp as melee characters, so there would have to be something else here (like hp from strength, assuming casters would need to consistently raise Int to be able to sustain purity, which is false, so I guess the solution would have to be slightly more complex).
acvar's proposal goes extremely in this direction
basing hp gains from fighting on racial hp goes a bit in this direction

Fix grinding:
If it's impossible to artificially train fighting, meaning it would actually be a good representation of fightiness, there's no need to worry about it.
Of course, this is probably impossible without overhauling far too much of crawl.

You know, you can actually get fighting up without grinding with spammals (such as, you know, by using fighting when it makes sense, rather than spamming spells just cuz you can).

The fact some people grind out fighting with spammals (and then complain about it) is a problem with them moreso than with the game.

Also

1. HP at Fighting 0 should be bumped up to where HP is now at Fighting 12 (or whatever skill level a pure caster would currently never want to advance beyond). Benefits from fighting should be rescaled appropriately. (note, this does make the game a bit easier - overall experience gain might have to be tweaked).

This doesnt just make the game somewhat it easier, it makes it a ton easier. It also buffs casters more than melee because its a larger proportional change for them.

Just make manual of fighting more common or something and be done with it.

Actually it would make more sense to whack Summon Butterflies, wouldn't it?

[KoboldLord]

Hit points is really only one measure of the endgame fighter-type's defensive power. If it ends up not being feasible to give non-casters more hit points, an alternative is to make each of their hit points worth more. Unfortunately, quite a few endgame monster abilities simply ignore AC and defenses like it.

As long as weapon abilities are on the burner for the major release after the one coming up, it might be worthwhile to add some defensive perks, too. A non-magic character has no shortage of xp to sink into the relevant skills, but a magic character starts getting stretched thin just by diverting xp to the four or so they build up now.

[MrMisterMonkey]

The fact some people grind out fighting with spammals (and then complain about it) is a problem with them moreso than with the game.

It's the same deal as with selling from shops. I don't grind up fighting with spammals, myself, but I complain about it being bad design because, while it is horribly and painfully tedious, it is rewarding, as it reliably and artificially (no need to actually be a melee/hybrid build at all) trains fighting without endangering the player.

[smock]

Fighting is funny because it's both a combat skill and an HP skill. Casters only want the HP part. dpeg and others have pointed out that the bonuses can be a function of other skills.

Would it work to put have the combat bonus be a function of weapons skills and the HP bonus to be a function of armour, dodging and shields? Flavor-wise that makes sense to me. While this wouldn't change game play much, it would be great if conjurers didn't have high a fighting skill. That's just a bit silly. This proposal would have more casters standing in front of bats to train skills, but I do that anyway to train shields.

If fighting stays, as it sounds like it will, I like the race-based HP gain and I the idea of spellcasting and fighting being opposing skills -- both are good flavor and the latter would deter mages from training fighting.

[acvar]

Moving HP gain to other skills just leads to players grinding other skills. It does not solve the root problem. The root problem is that as long as there is a clearly best skill we will never get a reasonable solution to victory dancing. In all honesty what needs to be done is a rather large leap of faith. We need to implement something similar to the "focus" skill I mentioned earlier in this thread and let the chips fall where they may. When "every" character picks fighting as their focus skill then we know fighting is broken and the devs can take steps to fix it until it is no longer the de facto "focus" skill. Then when every spellcaster makes spellcasting their "focus" skill the devs can work on balancing spellcasting. Creating a better more controllable training system will highlight where the imbalances are and allow the devs to focus on them.

[smock]

Moving HP gain to other skills just leads to players grinding other skills. It does not solve the root problem. The root problem is that as long as there is a clearly best skill we will never get a reasonable solution to victory dancing.

Yikes! I guess I missed the root problem with fighting. I don't think that doing anything can solve the root problem with fighting. This is also a problem with dodging, shields, etc. Less so for some skills that are easier to victory dance. I lies, I think, in how skill leveling works. Anyway, everyone knows this. But I'd bet that some characters will always have a "clearly best skill" at a point in the game, and where that skill is not trained naturally they'll grind. Crusaders grind spellcasting sometimes. Getting rid of fighting would help, yes, but grinding would still be there.

Yes, the ideas I summarized deal with another issue with fighting: It's lame that mages have many levels in the fighting skill. Lame lame lame. Just renaming it to "robustness" would solve that problem, though. And it wouldn't be any more misnamed, as mages use fighting for HP.

It's easier to grind dodging and shields -- just find a big bat and wait 1000 turns -- so I think the idea I mentioned would help the root problem somewhat.

[smock]

I don't think that doing anything can solve the root problem with fighting.

I meant: I don't think that doing anything with just fighting can solve the root problem with fighting.

As an aside, anyone know why the editing function times out so quickly?

[dpeg]

I believe that there's (a) too much xp in the game, and (b) too many too little monsters.

On (a): ideally, xp is a very limited resource and you have to spend it very thoughtfully. Of course, we cannot be as strict as that, because there has to be the option to re-skill your character. But still, getting Fighting up to 12 with a pure caster could mean more than it does now... this plan would mean that higher skill levels are to be more important, something we want to achieve anyway (it's a slow process).
The other part is that perhaps one skill for HP purposes is not enough. That's why I proposed using the melee skills (including Unarmed Combat) for HP purposes. Maybe it cannot possibly work, but the idea that HP gain is slower than now and linked to prowess with all forms of melee combat would mean that you'd have to sink a lot more xp into those skills than now... so it'd be more expensive for pure casters, but not much more for pure melee fighters. (Who often train a melee skill together with Unarmed Combat anyway, then usually have xp to spend, and there could be ways to incorporate double-training, as indicated elsewhere.) By the way, there could still be a Fighting aptitude which governs how fast xp spent into melee skills is turned into HP.

On (b): Besides from being unfun, tons of pointless critters are just invitations to try to victory dance. This does not just hold for Fighting (I've done it myself, so I know: as a caster, use spells for tough guys, and clumsily bash at them with a weapon in order to get Fighting up), but also for Dodging, Armour, Shields. Needless to say, summons shouldn't train anything.

[dpeg]

minmay: I believe you missed my point. It is one thing to spend the xp to get Fighting 10 on your caster. It is another if you need a melee skill up to 20 (say). My proposal makes gaining HP harder (in the sense of more expensive) for the one not interested in melee without hurting the melee fighter any.

[zasvid]

My proposal makes gaining HP harder (in the sense of more expensive) for the one not interested in melee without hurting the melee fighter any.

As far as I understand your proposal, it will result in pure melee fighters switching constantly (at least after maxing out their main weapon skill) between weapons of different categories to squeeze some more HPs out of the system. Come to think of it, casters will also be switching - between magical staves and a weapon in which they have the best aptitude. That would be quite aggravating.

[dpeg]

zasvid: the original idea (don't know by whom) was that high-end weapons (executioner axe, the good swords etc.) use two skills, i.e. an additional skill besides their original weapon class.
You are aware of the fact that casters are already switching? The idea is to increase the xp pool necessary for the full HP effect.

[zasvid]

zasvid: the original idea (don't know by whom) was that high-end weapons (executioner axe, the good swords etc.) use two skills, i.e. an additional skill besides their original weapon class.

Well, that sounds better. I'll track down this idea to add a few details that might accentuate its strengths while limiting its weaknesses (though, if I fail to track it down, here they are: * limit the number of melee skills that provide a bonus to HP so no-one will feel compelled to grind a weapon skill he doesn't need - perhaps 3 would be a good number (to gain the benefits of a two-skill weapon and UC) * weigh the HP bonus towards the later levels of weapon skilldom - e.g. levels 11-20 should provide more bonus HP total than levels 1-10 - this would offset maxing out weapon delay)

You are aware of the fact that casters are already switching?

Are they? I grind my HPs with my staff of magic/weapon of protection. Am I doing it wrong?

The idea is to increase the xp pool necessary for the full HP effect.

I am not sure that this strategy might ever bear fruit. Consider Diablo 2, which actually seems quite similar to DCSS in spirit (at least in the tactical dimension, DCSS is way better at being non-tedious). It even had roughly the same set of stats - Str, Dex, a stat for Magic and Vitality, which only provided hp. However, depending on the class, Vitality provied a varying amount of HPs - pure melee guys got twice as much hit points per Vitality point (which were limited) than pure casters and yet optimal play according to every strategy guide was to get your Str and Dex high enough to use your equipment and put everything else into Vitality, eschewing the Mana stat completely, because Hit Points are king, even if they are twice as expensive for casters. So, bumping up the price of HP for casters in Crawl might result in them just skipping the non-essential spells and schools and I'm not sure whether this is a goal (it might be good and differentiate spellcasters better - forcing them to make decisions such as "should I pick up Charms and Translocations, or Charms and HP skills, or Translocations and HP skills"; or it might make them less diverse, going for the most optimal school sets).

[Cybermg]

Similar to zasvid's point, here's a scenario that I think shows why making HP harder to train doesn't fix the grinding problem

Imagine that you left things as they are, except that you halved the training speed of fighting. How would this affect the play of casters?

Certainly, they would focus a bit more on their magic skills, since their magic needs to level at a certain rate to keep pace with the dungeon, and fighting would spread it too thin. However, the benefit of HP when you've got an extremely low total is HUGE - fighting is expensive, but getting to a minimally survivable level of HP is do or die. So a great deal of grinding will be done to work on HP, and now at an even slower rate than before. It's likely that casters won't train fighting to the same levels as before, simply because they can't, and because other defensive skills will seem more appealing. However, they'll still spend approximately as much time as before grinding, because they have about the same amount of spare exp to spend, and possibly a little more time grinding because the low fighting levels they're currently progressing through are each more valuable.

This is why I suggested that HP growth without fighting should be a little higher. You either give characters their minimally viable level of HP (just a little boost, no need to go overkill here), or every character must train fighting to that minimally viable point. Combining the two strategies - getting more HP automatically and increased costs of HP training, might actually work even better.

[acvar]

My proposal makes gaining HP harder (in the sense of more expensive) for the one not interested in melee without hurting the melee fighter any.

As far as I understand your proposal, it will result in pure melee fighters switching constantly (at least after maxing out their main weapon skill) between weapons of different categories to squeeze some more HPs out of the system. Come to think of it, casters will also be switching - between magical staves and a weapon in which they have the best aptitude. That would be quite aggravating.

I once thought the weapons skills as HP boosters was a good idea until I realized this truth, but I think I just had a really good idea along the same lines. What if the HP bonuses were tied to weapon skills, but you did not even start to get bonuses in them until the upper levels. This would solve the problem of caster grinding up the skills since the front side is just way to costly, and it would also solve the problem of weapon skills being all but useless after you hit minimum delay with your weapon. If caster had to dump 10 levels into a weapon skill before seeing any HP gain would it be worth it still? If non-casters starting getting HP bonuses after level 10 in a weapon skill would they train their short blades past 12 level?

[galehar]

The idea is to increase the xp pool necessary for the full HP effect.

That can be achieved by raising the skill cost by 30% (like spellcasting) and scaling the hp bonus to racial hp. Boost racial hp a bit to compensate. I think a pure caster trains fighting to about 5 currently, not to 12 like somebody said. Training it that high is playing a hybrid.
I think we can fix the problem that way. It's simpler and easier than your proposal.

[dolphin]

A possible modification of acvar's "no-HP-until-high-skill" might be to have successive hills and plateaus of HP gain. So, you'd gain some HP in few early levels, but then the gain would plateau, and you couldn't start gaining HP from skills again until a later level. For example,using arbitrary numbers, Skill levels 1-5 could have 10% of the skill-based HP gain, 10-15 could have 20%, and 20-27 could have 70%. This could provide a softer solution that could allow early fighters and casters to gain some HP, but still make it necessary to invest heavily in fighting skills to optimize HP.

[KoboldLord]

I think a pure caster trains fighting to about 5 currently, not to 12 like somebody said. Training it that high is playing a hybrid.

I don't know how one would fix it, or even if it's a problem, but once you've trained fighting to 5 there's no reason not to continue training it to 12. You still get the linear increase in hit points, but your melee killing power has gone up enough that it is now safe to melee things like yaks and centaurs for more fighting, instead of just training on rats and imps.

[smock]

Fighting would be worse for spellcasters if the spellcasting skill reduced the bonus HP from the fighting skill.
Something like this:
TotalHP=BaseHP + Max(FightingHP - 2 * Spellcasting, 0)

[jejorda2]

What if we did something like this:
No HP is gained when Fighting skill is raised. No MP is gained when spellcasting is raised.
When XP Level is gained, compare fighting skill to spellcasting skill. If fighting is higher, give full hp gain from fighting skill increase since last level and 1/3 of MP increase from spellcasting increase since last level. If spellcasting skill is higher, give 1/3 hp gain from fighting skill increase since last level and full MP gain from spellcasting increase since last level.

[Hushed]

I think that Fighting providing a 'general' bonus to combat is a service that needs to be preserved.

I also think linking any hp gain to Str is a good idea- but to do so Dex and Int would need to also be made more intrinsically valuable. I was thinking something like having Fighting and Spellcasting being more like metaskills. Fighting could give ((Str/5)^2 * (racial modifier))/27 HP per skill level. Also, if you still needed to discourage victory dancing, instead of raising Fighting directly through xp it could simply be a reflection of the character current progress in close combat skills. Likewise for Int, instead of spellcasting giving linear spell slot increases, make them (sqrt(Int))/4 (or something similar). It too could be a reflection of magic skills. Dex is already well represented in stabbing, stealth, ranged etc., but it could have more of a role to play in the armor/spellcasting penalty calculations.

And yes, I created an account just so my first post could armchair quarterback this discussion .

-Hushed

[Zicher]

Fighting would be worse for spellcasters if the spellcasting skill reduced the bonus HP from the fighting skill.
Something like this:
TotalHP=BaseHP + Max(FightingHP - 2 * Spellcasting, 0)

But this would mean that a hybrid char whose Spellcasting just rose up would find that his maxHP just dropped by 2. Would someone like this? I, for one, certainly won't.
Perhaps a bias on Fighting and Spellcasting aptitudes might help?
Now the HP bonus is Fighting*XL /5. If one would be thinking this was, the divisor could be something like 5+(max((Spc - Fgt*2) / 3, 0)).
Thus, the divisor would be 7.66 for Deep Elves, 7.33 for Spriggans, 5.66 for High Elves, 5.66 for Ogres (probably would need special-casing!) and the current 5 for heavy metal races like MD and Mi. The HP gain for DE and Sp as shown would thus be about 2/3 of the current value.
Probably would need futher parameter tweaking, though.

[dolphin]

I think "Max(FightingHP - 2 * Spellcasting, 0)" means "FightingHP - 2 * Spellcasting OR zero, whichever is greater."

[wesleyshaver]

I can't help but think there's a very simple solution to this problem, and perhaps I didn't state it clearly. Only two changes to the current system are needed:

1. Eliminate the HP bonus from Fighting and the MP bonus from Spellcasting.

2. Replace the above bonus with a bonus to HP from STR and a bonus to MP from INT

This should accomplish all the goals I think people want: Spellcasters no longer grind Fighting for HP, and Fighter-types will have more HP than spellcasters who will have more MP.

[dpeg]

wesleyshaver: I have written a comment on some page (in this thread) why this naive approach will not do.

[galehar]

wesleyshaver: I have written a comment on some page (in this thread) why this naive approach will not do.

Here.

Another price would be using stats. First, we can only use base stats (otherwise wearing a ring of Str or Str mutations would have an effect on Health). So there are nine choices for the player -- which have to cover the range between what is now 0 Fighting (never chose Str) and 27 Fighting (chose Str every time). And here is why I don't think that will work well: Crawl is way too much skill-centric and stats are not nearly important enough. For example, it would be very conceivable to choose Str every time and still be a caster. Granted, you'd perhaps put then more emphasis on Int-items, but I don't think that stats alone can achieve the goal.

[wesleyshaver]

dpeg wrote:
Another price would be using stats. First, we can only use base stats (otherwise wearing a ring of Str or Str mutations would have an effect on Health). So there are nine choices for the player -- which have to cover the range between what is now 0 Fighting (never chose Str) and 27 Fighting (chose Str every time). And here is why I don't think that will work well: Crawl is way too much skill-centric and stats are not nearly important enough. For example, it would be very conceivable to choose Str every time and still be a caster. Granted, you'd perhaps put then more emphasis on Int-items, but I don't think that stats alone can achieve the goal.

DPEG: I fail to see why "we can only use base stats". What's wrong with letting rings of STR or mutations have an effect on health? The part galehar bolded actually supports this. You state that "Crawl is too skill-centric and stats are not nearly important enough" but my proposal would specifically make stats more important and skills less important. As far as I can tell I'm supporting your goal not contradicting it. Furthermore it does give spellcasters an interesting choice (+STR for HP or +INT for MP, etc.) instead of the current situation where if you ever cast spells you stack INT no matter what.

This would make us sacrifice some spellcasting ability for some durability. Currently that choice does not exist, you can have it both ways if you're willing to grind enough (which is bad).

[dolphin]

I believe galehar was pointing out that this is just how things are . If I said that the ocean current is just way too strong relative to your swimming skills, and that being generally strong doesn't count for much there, I think that is an equivalent statement. To overhaul the general stats/skills balance would be a massive undertaking. I think that the benefits of such an undertaking would have to be incredibly, even-more-massively awesome for it to happen. Of course, I'm no dev . . .

[sanka]

Sorry if my proposal have been suggested an refuted, I missed it then.

Currently the bonus from the fighting skill is scaleing with character level - maybe multiplies with the skill level?. Why won't we take out the character's level's effect, and replace it with the skill? Maybe a little tweaking of the formula would be necessary, I do not know the exact formula.

This way the Fighting skill at level 5 and character level 27 would yield much less hp, so it may not be worth the trouble to train it. Fighters usually train it up high, so they still will get the same amount of hp.

A little change may be necessary - the proposed change would make low level fighters have more hp, and high level fighters have less hp. This is a boost to melee classes I think, because in my experience at high levels a little bit hp does not count as much as in the early levels. The early game would be much-much easier for them, and we may not want this. But maybe it's possible to come up with a formula that helps with this problem - a not strictly quadratic one.

About other proposals - I do like if at least some of the hp is tied to strength. I understand that it would be hard to balance to move the whole hp gain from the skills to the attributes - but the bonus need not to be huge. But it definitly would boost the high strength species. Their weakest point is that hight strength is not realy relevant, if they do not want to cast in heavy armour. Maybe one point of hp / strength.

I do not really like the "racial hp from fighting" proposal. Felids may be special cased, because they are overpowered with the extra lives anyway. But with other fragile species, I really like that you can choose to play a fighter with them. Kenkus or even spriggans can be good fighters because the hp gain from fighting has a huge effect. If the gain from the fighting skill is somehow tied to the species, then the difference between the species will be less if they do no melee, and will be bigger if they do. I do not like either of these changing - I like them to be extremly fragile, and I sometimes play spellcasters with no fighting just for fun, but I also like to play fighter types with the fragile races.

Crawl has a very good balace, so I do trust the developers, whatever route they choose.

Sorry for my lousy english, hope I made myself understand.