Getting rid of Fighting.

[acvar]

Lets face facts the fighting skill is a problem child. I have seen countless suggestions for features that are ended with "no because the fighting skill....". Some of the features/solutions are very important like getting rid of victory dancing. So lets find a way to get rid of the fighting skill.

The fighting skill does 2 things in crawl as far as I can tell:
1. Gives characters more HP so non-casters have more HP then casters.
2. Makes using "off" weapon skills less painful.

Is there anything other then these 2 things that fighting does?

One is a pretty bad use of a skill. It encourages characters that have no intention of every fighting anything more threatening then a sewer rat to grind up fighting just to get a few more HP. Grinding is bad. A better way to give non-casters more HP then casters needs to be implemented.

Two is far more important. It makes no sense for a character that has spent 20 levels chopping things up with an ax to suddenly start fighting like a newbie just because they pick up a dagger. This feature needs to be preserved.

Here is my proposal:
1. Get rid of the fighting skill.
2. Increase the base hit points that all characters get for leveling.
3. Make skill levels in magic skills (spellcasting, fire magic, hexes...) give a penalty to HP.
4. Make a characters "skill" with a weapon equal the average of that weapons skill and the characters highest weapon skill.

This system completely gets rid of grinding. There are no stats to grind because there are no bonuses given out for high skills. At the same time it preserves both of the desired benefits of the fighting skill.

Opinions? Additions? Obvious problems?

[TGW]

Point 3 is a terrible idea. Training skills should not confer gigantic penalties to a character.

[XuaXua]

Point 3 is a terrible idea. Training skills should not confer gigantic penalties to a character.

Unless they're opposing in magical nature like ice/fire.

[MrMisterMonkey]

that only penalizes skill training -- no negative spell power enhancers or anything

[acvar]

Point 3 is a terrible idea. Training skills should not confer gigantic penalties to a character.

So a system which generates the same outcome of the current system with out the grinding is a terrible idea? Why? Spellcasters will not have fewer HP then they currently do if the system is implemented properly, but they will not have to grind out fighting like they currently do. How is that a bad thing? What is the real difference between:

Character gets 100 HP by leveling plus about 30 from grinding fighting.

and

Character gets 200 HP by leveling minus about 70 due to levels in magic skills.

What is the problem?

[Moose]

Another way of handling this would be to let players choose where and when their added magic points and hit points go when they gain a level.

So each time you level you get X point to spend, and you can allocate them among HP/MP as you choose. This might be too micromanagy though, especially at lower levels.

[jejorda2]

Would it make sense to give HP based on some combination of dodging, armour, and shields skills, much as MP is given based on Spellcasting and Evocation skills? HP is a form of defense, so perhaps defensive skills should contribute.

Defensive skill investment is worthwhile enough that it might not be as much like grinding.

Character gets 200 HP by leveling minus about 70 due to levels in magic skills.

What is the problem?

If you get 200HP leveling your Crusader who has never learns a spell, then start learning and training spells at XP Level 27, why should you lose HP?

[Zedd]

It's just damn better to give a lot more HP bonus from Strenght gain...
Melee characters would more often than not put points ins STR and gain the HP bonus. Casters? Not that often.

This also has the secondary benefit (in my opinion) of making it so that 'strenght-oriented', armored and optionally shielded melee fighters have more HP than 'dexterity-oriented' evasion cloak-and-dagger stabbing characters. Right now, with the Fighting skill giving HP bonus, they tend to have more or less the same HP, given the same training in this one very useful for both skill.

[dassem]

That's a really interesting idea. I am not sure I like the concept of decreasing HP when you gain MP, but it does raise a good point.

Like XuaXua suggested above, maybe make them oppose, so that it is much harder to gain Fighting when you have high Spellcasting... (And vice versa.)

Another thought I had is that you could cap them so that instead of being able to raise both skills to 27, you can only raise the total to 27. Whether you do 27:0, 13:14 or 1:26, you'd end up with a very different character...

[acvar]

Would it make sense to give HP based on some combination of dodging, armour, and shields skills, much as MP is given based on Spellcasting and Evocation skills? HP is a form of defense, so perhaps defensive skills should contribute.

Defensive skill investment is worthwhile enough that it might not be as much like grinding.

Character gets 200 HP by leveling minus about 70 due to levels in magic skills.

What is the problem?

If you get 200HP leveling your Crusader who has never learns a spell, then start learning and training spells at XP Level 27, why should you lose HP?

Casters get high defensive skills also so it would not serve the purpose of having non-casters get more HP. It would lead to grinding armour + dodge, or grinding shields even when you are a two hander. As long as you tie a HP bonus to a skill people will grind it because HP are just that important.

Yes the crusader would loose hp as he trained his skills. It is part balance and part only worrying about the way the vast majority of people play the game. If you worry about all the fringe exceptions nothing will get done. If you think it just does not make sense then here are 3 points:

1. Its just a game it is not suppose to make sense just play well.
2. Its magic and as such has no basis in the real world.
3. If thats not good enough for you just think that casting spells is very hard on your body and repeated long term spellcasting wears you down and makes you more fragile.

The key here is making a system that does not promote grinding, and allows non-caster to have more HP then hybrids which have more HP then pure casters. Getting rid of a skill that is unbalanced at the same time is also a good thing. If anybody has a better idea then speak up by all means.

[pratamawirya]

Fighting should stay, as long as Spellcasting does.

I propose these changes:
1. Fighting is trained by doing any kind of attacks, be it melee, ranged, or even spell-based.
2. In terms of training Fighting, Melee is (much) better than Ranged, and Ranged is (much) better than Spell-based.
3. There are minor things which also help in training fighting, such as trampling (so in Dragon Form, you train Fighting better when your character tramples smaller enemies).



BTW, acvar, I like your "act first, worry later" attitude.

[vintermann]

pratamawirya: This is a much better idea than getting rid of fighting. We want to let casters have those few hit points they gain from training fighting to moderate levels - the rest of the game is balanced as if they will. What we don't want is victory dancing fighting - but there's nothing special about fighting there, VD is the issue, not fighting.

(Personally I don't think VD is a huge issue either. It'd be nice if it could be lessened, but it's basically just an inconvenience.)

Another way to change fighting would be to have it train upon taking damage in melee, rather than dealing damage. Although quite a few things are tied to that already, it would allow ranged fighters/casters to train it appropriately little without special effort.

[acvar]

What is the problem?

The problem is that players will feel even more pressured to keep their spellcasting skills as low as they can get away with. If it's not worthwhile to train Charms past 15 with the current system, it sure won't be worthwhile to train it past 15 with a system that actively punishes you for it. You could rebalance the entire system around that, but you'd need to be extremely precise. Even with that, casters would still be dumping experience into non-spellcasting skills to get more HP; all that XP has to go somewhere. (Avoiding loss of HP is just like gaining HP.)

I think players should still be able to sacrifice XP into getting more HP. The Fighting skill accomplishes that, but it is a pain in the butt to train and its HP effect is considered way better than its effect on actual fighting. I have suggested this before: a lot of the problem could be fixed by making Fighting skill affect actual fighting more and HP less. This hurts ranged attackers who only train it for HP, but keeps melee fighters about the same.

This argument is simply bogus and you admit it in your post. People already turn off things like poison magic and enchantments past a certain point. This fix does not change that. Even if it did wouldn't that be a case that those skills need rebalancing to make their upper levels actually have meaning? Aren't interesting, meaningful decisions something a strategy game like crawl should be shooting for?

To everybody: One of the main reasons to get rid of the fighting skill is so that we can implement a reasonable training system that replaces victory dancing. This is not possible as long as certain skills like fighting are no-brainers-everybody-wants-it skills. Fighting is not all right. It is not good for the game. The developers have mentioned as much. It can and probably will get replaced. The problem I have seen is that the suggested replacements have mostly been ideas that simply shift the problem to other skills. This suggestion is an attempt to avoid that trap. To fix victory dancing we need the skills to be relatively equal in value. As long as HP bonuses are tied to any skill that will not be the case.

[pratamawirya]

@acvar:
You put it wrong. It's not VD that you want to get rid of. It's training a skill by doing something that doesn't really have anything to do with the character. (Such as a spellcaster slashing a bunch of rats over and over again, while in real combats the spellcaster will hardly use any weapon at all.)

Removing Fighting does not solve that bolded problem.

[dpeg]

Here is how I see it:

• Players must be able to shape their character. This includes a way to get more HP. So there has to be a price to pay, so that not everyone has the desirable high HP.
• Currently, we employ a skill for this, but the price seems to be too small (you have to train just one skill, the main obstacle is that training Fighting is so slow and tedious).
• 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.
• The underlying issue seems to be that the price of just one skill is not enough. So here is my proposal: remove the Fighting skill and do what that skill intended anyway: compute maximal Health from total melee skills (this includes Unarmed Combat). This contains two ideas at once: first, there is no need for an overarching fighting spell: the effect on fighting can very well be governed by the specific skill alone, and the effect on HP -- as well! (This is different to Spellcasting, which domes something beyond MP gain, namely spell hunger.)
  Second, this mechanic provides an impetus to train a melee skill beyond its natural limit (when weapon speed is minimised). What is more, it even provides motivation to train more than one melee skill. (I'd think that the effect on HP should have diminishing returns.)
  This proposal is not without problems. One is that the system would encourage even more sticking to the weapons of best aptitude. (This could be circumvented by using total xp spend in melee skills rather than actual skill levels, but that is more opaque.) Another is that cross-training suggests certain ladders of melee skills to work up. However, cross-training was invented in order to make attractive the practising of more than one weapon skill. Since this is completely achieved in the above system, cross-training could be removed.
  Note that pure fighters generally have experience to burn, so training a second melee skill would not worry them. (With the current system, it would still be inconvenient to do, but I support the idea mentioned in this forum that high-end weapons should use more than one skill.) On the other hand, casters generally don't have superfluous experience to train several melee skills.

[jpeg]

The problem is that players will feel even more pressured to keep their spellcasting skills as low as they can get away with. If it's not worthwhile to train Charms past 15 with the current system, it sure won't be worthwhile to train it past 15 with a system that actively punishes you for it. You could rebalance the entire system around that, but you'd need to be extremely precise. Even with that, casters would still be dumping experience into non-spellcasting skills to get more HP; all that XP has to go somewhere. (Avoiding loss of HP is just like gaining HP.)

This argument is simply bogus and you admit it in your post. People already turn off things like poison magic and enchantments past a certain point. This fix does not change that.

Sorry, but that's simply not true. If it's currently undesirable to train Charms past 15 (to stick with minmay's example), it becomes even more so if you are punished for it. (Up to now, I've only been repeating what minmay said.) The thing is, any outright negative effect for getting more skilled (and hitpoints are an area where it hurts, quite literally) will make victory dancing optimal (as opposed to occasionally desirable, with the current state) to move your xp into any other skill that doesn't punish you for raising it. Sure, if you're a pure caster, you will want to train your spellcasting skills anyway but this would pretty much force you to victory dance the skills you want to train after any big battle. Similarly, hybrids who've got as much spellcasting as they need, will need to burn all xp in their pool on non-magic skills before they start casting again. Of course, there will be cases where firestorming a threat is necessary even if it hurts your hit points in the longterm, but that's even more reason to victory dance until the xp pool is empty before continuing to explore.

[acvar]

dpeg: My problem with the system you put forward (I once suggested it also) is that it will do 2 things that are not desirable.

1. It makes it easier for pure casters to victory dance up HP since for example spriggans currently have to train fighting at -2 and under then new system they would grind short blades at +1. This lessons the divide between caster HP and non-caster HP.

2. It encourages fighters to grind other weapon skills that they have no intention of ever using. Once they get to max weapon speed for their primary weapon they will victory dance a new weapon at a much lower cost rather then continue to train their primary weapon at a much higher cost. That all seems very spoily to me.

I do not see a good fix for the first problem. The second could be fixed, but it would require quite a bit of work and some major overhauls. It looks like a good long term solution, but we need something for the here and now. Dividing up fighting between the other weapon skills without other major changes at the same time will just make grinding more tedious by making people worry about victory dancing multiple skills instead of just one which is the exact opposite direction we should be moving in. I am not saying it can not be done, but it seems like an awful lot of work when there is a much more straight forward and easier solution available.

[acvar]

@acvar:
You put it wrong. It's not VD that you want to get rid of. It's training a skill by doing something that doesn't really have anything to do with the character. (Such as a spellcaster slashing a bunch of rats over and over again, while in real combats the spellcaster will hardly use any weapon at all.)

Removing Fighting does not solve that bolded problem.

No this is absolutely not the case. The problem is victory dancing, that tedious process that is required by certain play styles. Allowing players to advance their characters as they see fit is not the problem. Getting rid of fighting (and more then likely spellcasting) allows the developers to implement a more straight forward interface for allowing players to advance their characters the way they want obsoleting victory dancing in the process. The goal is not to eliminate the ability to victory dance, but to eliminate the need to victory dance.

[pratamawirya]

Funny thing about dpeg's proposal is that well-rounded races like Human will get some kind of advantage.

Is a human supposed to be more "fit" than an... ogre, for example, after a session of physical exercise?

And that proposal does not solve the problem of victory dancing, at all. (I'm not saying that the devs need to put getting rid of victory dancing at the highest priority, though.)


@acvar:

No this is absolutely not the case. The problem is victory dancing, that tedious process that is required by certain play styles. Allowing players to advance their characters as they see fit is not the problem. Getting rid of fighting (and more then likely spellcasting) allows the developers to implement a more straight forward interface for allowing players to advance their characters the way they want obsoleting victory dancing in the process. The goal is not to eliminate the ability to victory dance, but to eliminate the need to victory dance.

People need to VD because they want something that they normally don't get. For an example, a spellcaster wants more HP so he does something that he doesn't normally do (melee combat).

The problem is doing something that isn't normal. Fighting is perfectly fine; it's just that currently non-melee characters train that skill in ways that aren't normal for them.

[acvar]

Funny thing about dpeg's proposal is that well-rounded races like Human will get some kind of advantage.

Is a human supposed to be more "fit" than an... ogre, for example, after a session of physical exercise?

And that proposal does not solve the problem of victory dancing, at all. (I'm not saying that the devs need to put getting rid of victory dancing at the highest priority, though.)


@acvar:

No this is absolutely not the case. The problem is victory dancing, that tedious process that is required by certain play styles. Allowing players to advance their characters as they see fit is not the problem. Getting rid of fighting (and more then likely spellcasting) allows the developers to implement a more straight forward interface for allowing players to advance their characters the way they want obsoleting victory dancing in the process. The goal is not to eliminate the ability to victory dance, but to eliminate the need to victory dance.

People need to VD because they want something that they normally don't get. For an example, a spellcaster wants more HP so he does something that he doesn't normally do (melee combat).

The problem is doing something that isn't normal. Fighting is perfectly fine; it's just that currently non-melee characters train that skill in ways that aren't normal for them.

So its not normal for a transmuter to use transmutation to buff himself going into combat? It is not normal for a crusader to buff himself before going into combat? You can not play either of these two playstyles without victory dancing up your magic skills. Victory dancing is not just about fighting and HP. It is flat out required by certain playstyles.

[galehar]

I don't think it's needed to remove fighting or spellcasting skills. Raising racial hp and scaling the fighting bonus to it, like suggested in the other thread, should be enough to remove the need to vd it. Maybe also raise its cost to 130 (like spellcasting).

[acvar]

I don't think it's needed to remove fighting or spellcasting skills. Raising racial hp and scaling the fighting bonus to it, like suggested in the other thread, should be enough to remove the need to vd it. Maybe also raise its cost to 130 (like spellcasting).

So if we do as you say would the following be broken?

Add the ability to set a "focus" skill to the skills menu. The "focus" skill receives 50% of all incoming experience off the top irregardless of how much you use that skill.

Would this work or would people "always" just set either fighting or spellcasting as their "focus" skill. If so then the problem is not really solved. Making a problem less obvious is not the same as solving it. It is just sweeping it under the rug.

[OneTrueFelid]

How would that interact with the Sage card, then? Focusing a skill seems like a bad idea. Personally, I would do something like always set Fighting as my focus skill until it reached an acceptable amount and then switch over to Spellcasting. If that maxed out, I would either work towards Tornado or improve Armour/Dodging.

[acvar]

How would that interact with the Sage card, then? Focusing a skill seems like a bad idea. Personally, I would do something like always set Fighting as my focus skill until it reached an acceptable amount and then switch over to Spellcasting. If that maxed out, I would either work towards Tornado or improve Armour/Dodging.

Exactly. Which is why fighting and spellcasting are a problem. They are clearly better then any other skill and as such are unbalanced and need to be changed or removed. The developers are well aware of this which is why they have implemented several kludges to keep them in check. They can either continue to make special exceptions for these two skills which all have their own costs, or they can just accept that they are broken and remove them while moving their effects to other areas.

[pratamawirya]

I just don't get this kind of thinking. You think that some skill is much more useful than the others, then you want to reduce it's usefulness or even get rid of it completely?

How does that improve the gameplay?

[dpeg]

You think that some skill is much more useful than the others, then you want to reduce it's usefulness or even get rid of it completely? How does that improve the gameplay?

In the same was as the gameplay got improved by getting rid of the Divinations skill, the Hill Dwarf, Gnome, Elf, Grey Elf, Ogre Mage species, the Selective Amnesia, Tomb of Dorokhloe, Banishment, Extension (and more) spells, the scroll of amnesia and map rot.

[pratamawirya]

Now that's some analogy, hahaha.

The problem with Selective Amnesia is simple: it does not need to exist.

The problem with Fighting is much more complex, and actually relates to something completely different: it encourages victory dancing.

Fighting as itself isn't a problem. But then one way or another it makes players do silly things like spellcasters slashing rats just to gain more HP, and that's the actual problem. The actual problem can be solved without removing the Fighting skill itself; if you try to remove the skill, you might even introduce other silly problems.

But then, when you removed Selective Amnesia, what kind of silliness did we end up with?

[acvar]

Yes it can possibly be fixed without removing the skill, but it is much harder then just removing the skill and moving its effects elsewhere. You could run a marathon in high heals. It would be possible, but why would you do it? Fighting causes problems. You can continue to make kludges in addition to the ones that already exist to fix problems it causes, or you can just get rid of it and all the problems it causes and all the kludges added to fix those problems.

[pratamawirya]

My point is: the real problem is something else that for some reason is related to Fighting skill.

Getting rid of Fighting skill doesn't solve the real problem.

Unlike Selective Amnesia, Fighting skill serves a real purpose that isn't served by any other means: it's a skill that increases the amount of HP. No other skill does that. But Sif Muna grants an ability that overlaps with Selective Amnesia, so it's just natural that the spell got removed.

Now, there's that proposal which wants to remove Fighting skill and invents a new way that does what the skill does. So the situation isn't that there's already something, some other skill, which does exactly what Fighting does, but rather the Fighting skill gets removed first and then the new way gets added to the game. You really can't say that this is the same situation as what happened to Selective Amnesia....

[TwilightPhoenix]

So if we do as you say would the following be broken?

Add the ability to set a "focus" skill to the skills menu. The "focus" skill receives 50% of all incoming experience off the top irregardless of how much you use that skill.

Would this work or would people "always" just set either fighting or spellcasting as their "focus" skill. If so then the problem is not really solved. Making a problem less obvious is not the same as solving it. It is just sweeping it under the rug.

Exactly. Which is why fighting and spellcasting are a problem. They are clearly better then any other skill and as such are unbalanced and need to be changed or removed. The developers are well aware of this which is why they have implemented several kludges to keep them in check. They can either continue to make special exceptions for these two skills which all have their own costs, or they can just accept that they are broken and remove them while moving their effects to other areas.

So, let's suggest a system for choosing which skill your XP gets sent into regardless. But wait, people would have it focus on whatever skill they want to VD, most likely Fighting and Spellcasting! So, this is a bad idea and proves that we should remove Fighting and Spellcasting!


....wait, what?

[MrMisterMonkey]

I just don't get this kind of thinking. You think that some skill is much more useful than the others, then you want to reduce it's usefulness or even get rid of it completely?

How does that improve the gameplay?

Being good isn't relevant if it's broken, and indeed, being vastly superior to other skills indicates brokenness.

What's so good about the gameplay of skills being far more attractive than others? What happens to interesting choice?

[pratamawirya]

Broken means it breaks the game so that it's no fun anymore.

Fighting being superior doesn't break the game. Seriously, do you really think the game isn't fun because you feel you have to spend EXP on Fighting or else Hellfire might end your quest too early?

But, on the other hand, killing a bunch of rats with mundane means to train Fighting even though you're an arcane artist might not be that much fun....

We have to see the real problem here, ladies and gentlemen.

[MrMisterMonkey]

Broken means it breaks the game so that it's no fun anymore.

where'd you get that

[pratamawirya]

Yeah, I suppose we can do nitpicking and some other things all day long. We can just focus on what we think is wrong with the other guy, just for the hell of it. But we can do better.

So let's say that Fighting is "broken". Now compare Fighting with Foxfire Card from Legendary Deck of Summoning. The card is considered broken (draw it and hope for a bunch of Red Wasp). The card is so much more powerful than a lot of the others that might be given by Nemelex.

Now, of course we want to make the card not so superior to the others. If we can do that, we might accomplish what we call as "interesting choice". But, does this problem really break the game? Do Nemelex players really find it not fun that their whole strategy is somewhat Foxfire Card-centric?

What I'm trying to say is, we might have been pointing the shotgun at the wrong creature.

Fighting is very powerful. Foxfire Card is very powerful. Yet they're not that problematic; they're not the real things that make the game not as fun as it should be. You cut them off without first severing the head of it all, you will just bring new problems to the table in the future.

You guys do know that understanding what problems to get rid of and what to let be at least for a while is very crucial to good design? Don't you?

[MrMisterMonkey]

Would you prefer it if I said fighting is "badly designed", or would you just misinterpret it too and continue harping on about how calling fighting "badly designed" is unreasonable?

oh and in case you didn't understand my point with the "where'd you get that", it's that you pulled the "so that it's no fun anymore" condition out of nowhere.
I see "brokenness" as bad design that specifically has an adverse gameplay effect, like foxfire, as in your example, trivializing nearly everything. That isn't to say brokenness implies overpoweredness, though (it doesn't).

[galehar]

Stop it guys, this is getting silly.
The fighting skill hp bonus is too strong, let's start by nerfing it. If it doesn't work, we'll try replacing it, but acvar's proposal is much worse anyway. By the way, the foxfire card has been nerfed a few days ago.
If the level of hostility keeps going, this thread will be locked.

[szanth]

In a perfect universe, we could give acvar unlimited resources with which to create his own wacky version of Crawl. I'd be curious to see if it'd be any fun.

[acvar]

Stop it guys, this is getting silly.
The fighting skill hp bonus is too strong, let's start by nerfing it. If it doesn't work, we'll try replacing it, but acvar's proposal is much worse anyway. By the way, the foxfire card has been nerfed a few days ago.
If the level of hostility keeps going, this thread will be locked.

Mind explaining how it is worse?

[KoboldLord]

Mind explaining how it is worse?

Victory Dancing puts your xp where you want it, but more importantly it keeps your xp out of places where you do not want it to be. In the current version, burning off your hybrid's xp pool into, say, translocations is still a good idea even if the only translocations spell you can cast right now is already at excellent, because it means that you aren't going to lose it to stabbing or something.

Your suggestion is that training spellcasting-related skills should actively lower hit points. Instead of the penalty for misallocation being, "Well, there's some xp I'll never see again" it becomes, "OMG! I've been stabbed in the brain by my magic and it will never heal!" Hence, if you want to play a spellcaster it is absolutely imperative that you not spend a single solitary point of xp in a spellcasting skill that you don't have an urgent use for, because every bit of extra training actively hurts you. The only way to ensure that xp is never misallocated to an unwanted skill is to Victory Dance it away… obsessively. A single misplaced spell could cost you permanent hit points, even if you could normally cast that same spell a thousand times in a row without any issue.

[jejorda2]

It looks clear that the only cost for training any skill should be the opportunity cost; that XP now can't be used for something else. Or it is now harder to train some opposing skill.

[acvar]

Mind explaining how it is worse?

Victory Dancing puts your xp where you want it, but more importantly it keeps your xp out of places where you do not want it to be. In the current version, burning off your hybrid's xp pool into, say, translocations is still a good idea even if the only translocations spell you can cast right now is already at excellent, because it means that you aren't going to lose it to stabbing or something.

Your suggestion is that training spellcasting-related skills should actively lower hit points. Instead of the penalty for misallocation being, "Well, there's some xp I'll never see again" it becomes, "OMG! I've been stabbed in the brain by my magic and it will never heal!" Hence, if you want to play a spellcaster it is absolutely imperative that you not spend a single solitary point of xp in a spellcasting skill that you don't have an urgent use for, because every bit of extra training actively hurts you. The only way to ensure that xp is never misallocated to an unwanted skill is to Victory Dance it away… obsessively. A single misplaced spell could cost you permanent hit points, even if you could normally cast that same spell a thousand times in a row without any issue.

But I am not talking about some linear progression here. As your total skills in magic approach 100 the penalty approaches 70. Past 100 skill levels the penalty grows by almost nothing. So if:

0 magic skills penalty = 0. Non-caster
100 magic skills penalty ~= 70. ~Player getting firestorm castable
405 magic skills penalty ~= 80. Player maxing out magic skills.

Would people still be micromanaging their levels in magic skills? Would they still victory dance left and right to save those last 10 HP? Would they victory dance at all if at the same time we gave them an alternative to victory dancing that is now easy to do because there is no "best" skill?

[KoboldLord]

But I am not talking about some linear progression here. As your total skills in magic approach 100 the penalty approaches 70. Past 100 skill levels the penalty grows by almost nothing. So if:

0 magic skills penalty = 0. Non-caster
100 magic skills penalty ~= 70. ~Player getting firestorm castable
405 magic skills penalty ~= 80. Player maxing out magic skills.

Would people still be micromanaging their levels in magic skills? Would they still victory dance left and right to save those last 10 HP? Would they victory dance at all if at the same time we gave them an alternative to victory dancing that is now easy to do because there is no "best" skill?

Not only would I obsessively victory dance to save those last 10hp, I would also work up a spreadsheet to determine the most cost-effective combination of conjurations and fire magic that would get me to Fire Storm given the spells and equipment that have come up. 22 conjurations and 14 fire magic got me there a few games ago, but would it be more efficient to go the other way around?

Maybe I'm not representative, but 10hp is actually kind of a big deal. It doesn't happen every game, but I've seen my character reduced to single-digit hp before.

[jackalKnight]

I think Fighting at least provides some difference between partial melee casters (SE Tr and MF Cr are typical examples) and things like Deep Elves that should avoid melee wherever possible. 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.

[acvar]

@KoboldLord:

You do not understand. That last 10 points is impossible to avoid since it requires you to max out your spellcasting skills, all of them. Unless you are grinding pan for days just to get all skills to 27 you will never lose those last 10 pnts.

Lets take a very simple equation:

max (0, 5*sqrt(TMS) - 10) = penalty

Starting DEWi currently has 7 HP less then Starting DEFi. New system is 3 less.

A 5th level non-caster with Fighting equal to level has about 12 more HPs then a caster with 0 fighting in the current system. If we assume that the caster has about 4*Level in magic skills then they are down 12 with this system.

At 10th level: non-caster has about 27 more then a non-caster in old system, and 21 in the new. This assumes no fighting skill for the spellcaster.

At 15th level: 37 for old with caster grinding fighting to 5. 29 for the new.

At 20th level: 47 for old with caster at 10 fighting. 34 for new.

At 25th level: 57 for old with caster at 15 fighting. 40 for new.

These levels for TMS (total magic skills) and fighting skills seem typical looking at high scores on the public server. This is just a quick equation off the top of my head and it is very close to the current system. With more refinement it could be even closer though I am not sure the difference should really be any higher. With this equation casters actually get slightly better HP without the need to grind fighting.

[KoboldLord]

These levels for TMS (total magic skills) and fighting skills seem typical looking at high scores on the public server. This is just a quick equation off the top of my head and it is very close to the current system. With more refinement it could be even closer though I am not sure the difference should really be any higher. With this equation casters actually get slightly better HP without the need to grind fighting.

Your interpretation reverses cause and effect. These average levels for magic and fighting skills on the public server are a consequence of the fact that there's more incentive to diversify than specialize in the late game. If you change the incentives, the average levels of magic and fighting skills will also change.

Extra hit points is a VERY large incentive to change your playing style. If your change was instituted, we would be able to expect the average skill levels on a public server to change dramatically.

Skilled players will tend towards optimal behavior regardless of how the devteam feels, and regardless on where the grinding is. The current magical skill averages are not something we can assume will remain constant even if a major change of the magnitude you suggest is made. The bigger the carrot or stick the game uses, the more incentive to game the system.

[acvar]

And you are saying that it is not worth it to give up 5 HP for the ability to move from bolt of fire to firestorm?

[TwilightPhoenix]

Not counting all the HP you lost getting to Bolt of Fire in the first place.

And no, it's not worth it since the only thing I have to give up now is XP.

And on this system, you're losing 17.5 HP just for having Spellcasting, Translocations, Fire Magic, Earth Magic, and Conjurations at 5 each, which is not hard to do and would be a very significant penalty. For another example, one of my recent deaths, a DEWi, was XL 15 with 62 HP. Fighting was at 1, so that was not a significant contributor. Now, let's penalize him for magic! 13 Spellcasting, 17 Conjurations, 5 Charms, 4 Necromancy, 3 Translocations, 15 Ice Magic, 5 Air Magic, 2 Poison Magic. I have 64 magic skills! Using some math, that means I should lose about 44.8 HP, let's round to 45. And... holy crap I only have a cap of 17 HP! Yeah, good luck surviving anything with that much health!

Or how about my winning pure-caster so far? MeVM whose victory was nothing short of a miracle. 176 HP with 6 Fighting, so still not much effect there. So, 16 Spellcasting, 22 Conjurations, 9 Enchantments, 4 Translocations, 6 Transmutations, 1 Fire Magic, 12 Ice Magic, 16 Air Magic, 10 Poison Magic. 96 magic skills total, would have been higher if I didn't let my dodging go to 19 (but that's arguably what saved my butt in that game). -67 hp. Guesstimating with no fighting bonus, I'd have maybe 100 HP, probably less. Oh hi Ancient Lich, is that an Orb of Destruction? Oh hey Orb of Fire, you want to one-shot me too? ...yeah

Heck, even my winning Berserker would have lost a HP or two because scrolls gave me Spellcasting. And Felids do not need to lose more HP.

Ok, now, in order to avoid these massive HP drops, I would have had to VD some other skills. It's be like grinding fighting, except instead of grinding for more HP, I'm grinding to lose less.

By the way, Sage cards. What does a player do when they draw a Sage card and it gives them Conjurations? Do they just quit? Hide in a corner with a pile of food until the effect ends? What if they're in the middle of a big fight with high XP monsters and the only way out they have left is to kill them all? To they sacrifice oodles of perma-HP? Do they quit the character in frustration? What if someone read-IDs a manual while having a ton of XP banked they need to burn and, oh dear, it was Air Magic. Congrats, reading a supposedly helpful item just knocked out some of your HP for good!

Yeah, to be honest I'm just really seeing this "system" as a very bad idea.

[MrMisterMonkey]

I hate acvar's system too but your examples are flawed:
point 2 of acvar's system (increasing base hp) would make it so you would have much more hp before your deductions, and performing the deductions should bring you to about how much hp you would have by the status quo (so ~62 for your DEWz).