Species Proposal: Leshii, the Forest Folk

[Noisewar]

Leshy Race

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The Leshii are spiritual forest folk, often thought to be the soul of the trees themselves due to their treant-like appearance. While they're plantlike by nature, the wild magics of the forest allows them to change their flesh and appearance to that of their victims, and making them exceptionally crafty, stealthy defenders of their domain. While some leshy are merely mischievous imitators luring wayward travelers deep into the forests for fun, others are very territorial, and deliver quick and violent ends to trespassers. They are exceptional at using primitive weapons, and capable with the natural earth and air magics of their environment.

Design Goal
Leshii give players powerful warrior or caster who relies on stealth and planning to maximize their effectiveness. They have a shapeshifting-flavored minigame that can be played out in many ways, but rewards selective, tactical kill orders.


Innate Abilities

* Leshii can temporarily fleshshift, assuming the flesh type of the last natural or plant enemy killed. Your base (ignoring equipment or effects) Movement Speed and AC values are modified by 50% of the difference between you and the base values of the enemy killed. Additionally, this gives the same resistances, vulnerabilities, and unarmed attack flavour as the victim, as well as the following possible flags:

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Acid splash
See/sense invisible
Blood temperature
Flying/levitate
Web sense
Spiny
Glows
Phase shift
Blood scent (acts as max power Detect Monsters)

* Leshii have a small (1%) chance to lose any acquired mutations with each fleshshift.
* Mutating , polymorphing, or receiving chaotic damage has (level X 2)% chance refreshing a Leshi. This effect is equivalent to consuming a potion of restore abilities and heal wounds.
* Leshii flesh naturally reverts back to plant type around 200 turns after their last fleshshift.
* Leshii are considered chaotic creatures. They cannot worship Zin, and are vulnerable to silver damage.
* Herbivorous 2: Leshii gain much less nutrition from meat, and more from plant-based food.
* Regeneration 1: Leshii heal faster than normal.
* Leshii can only wear primitive or natural armors, e.g. cloth, leather, hides, or dragon armours.
* Leshii do not suffer a penalty for opposing air and earth schools.


Preferred Backgrounds
Leshii do not recognize the rule of laws outside that of nature, and thus cannot be Priests.
Warrior: Hunter, Monk
Zealots: Berzerker, Chaos Knight
Warrior-mages: Enchanter, Transmuter, Arcane Marksmen
Mages: Wizard, Summoner, Earth Elementalist, Air Elementalist


Level Bonuses
* Leshii gain a random stat (equal chance) every 4 levels.
* Leshii gain 5 MR per level.
* Leshii have 10% more HP than average.
* Leshii have 10% more MP than average.
* At level 8, leshii can attempt to stabilize their flesh. This ability costs 300 food, and grants [5+(level X 3)]% chance to keep your current flesh type after a kill, and persists until you do fleshshift.


Starting Skills and Equipment
* All meat rations are replaced with bread rations.
* Begin with potions of water, mutation, and wands of polymorph identified.


Skill aptitudes

Fighting 0
Short Blades 0
Long Blades 0
Axes 0
Maces & Flails 3
Polearms 2
Staves 2
Unarmed Combat 1

Throwing 1
Slings 1
Bows 1
Crossbows -3

Armour -3
Dodging 0
Stealth 4
Shields -3
Traps -2

Fire Magic -2
Ice Magic -2
Air Magic 2
Earth Magic 2
Poison Magic 2

Spellcasting 0
Conjurations 0
Hexes 1
Charms 0
Summonings 1
Necromancy -1
Translocations -1
Transmutation 3

Invocations 0
Evocations -1
Experience -2


Strategy
Leshii are very versatile, capable both of fighting with a variety of weapons as well as using offensive magic, but do gain levels quite slowly, and will need to focus on just a few skills to start. Due to their chaotic, polymorphic nature, the can use mutations and polymorphs as a rudimentary way to heal, and generally invite contamination. Jiyva can be a great god to worship, both for the healing from mutation, but also because there are many items leshii cannot use. More challenging is the fact that they have a difficult time with staying satiated when exploring outside their forest home in the dungeon.

The fleshshifting mechanic makes it very important for leshii to plan a kill order. In a standard fight, you may want to rush to take down enemies in order of highest AC to minimize damage taken. If you're planning to tackle a hard unique, it may be better to find a strong enemy first, kill it, and take your new flesh to face the unique immediately. Alternatively, you may want to plan kill order to get the most out of the resistances, vulnerabilities, or special abilities you may gain. If you are attempting to escape, it may be worth killing a fast enemy first before trying. Other ways of escaping include gaining certain enemy traits like swim speed or flying, and taking advantage of the environment (or creating new environment via Fedhas or Lugonu).

Due to the inability to wear most armours, as well as the lack of good defensive skills, they will have to resort to magic or stealth for survivability.

[tasonir]

I like the non-metal theme, with leather armors permitted but no ring mail or heavier (except dragon). Allowing air and earth without anti-training might be odd, and the race does seem generally a bit too strong, although it wouldn't be hard to nerf it once playtesting started.

I don't think a race with +2 and +3 weapon options and 10% more health who simultaneously has good magic aptitudes will need to rely on stealth. With +1 unarmed and 3 transmutations, I'd probably just do my favorite thing of walk up and punch everything to death.

Herbivorous 2 could make it very frustrating to play though. Maybe give it an ability which allows it to generate nutrition - photosynthesis of some sort? Although with nausea removed, it could still be playable as is.

[Mankeli]

I think the polymorphing into an enemy idea has been discussed multiple times and the problem of it is that it would probably lead to very tedious and gameable gaming experience which would be really had to balance. It could be optimal to leave some types of monsters alive in certain places etc. (vampires have this already though, to a certain, lesser extent). The losing of mutations thing would lead to same.

[Noisewar]

I think the polymorphing into an enemy idea has been discussed multiple times and the problem of it is that it would probably lead to very tedious and gameable gaming experience which would be really had to balance. It could be optimal to leave some types of monsters alive in certain places etc. (vampires have this already though, to a certain, lesser extent). The losing of mutations thing would lead to same.

Yeah I'm aware of the back-and-forth of shapeshifting discussions, but this is not directly changing into an enemy, rather modifying your attributes. I think a lot of problems with shapeshifting have to do with how a persistent form can screw the current balance of a floor. The leshii design is intended to limit your forms to what's available locally. For example, in Spider's Nest you're likely to gain the ability to do poisonous attack for extra damage, but also likely to get the poison vulnerability of most of the denizens. Trying to plan a floor-wide kill order here is not going to gain you much, especially if any optimal traits you gain only last until your next kill, by design. For that reason, persisting a form (level 8 ability) has a high food cost, and even then isn't likely to last long.

Basically, all other shapeshifting proposals I've seen cause imbalance by allowing players to enter any situation optimally, whereas this approach tries to take that control away so it can only be used tactically.

[Noisewar]

I like the non-metal theme, with leather armors permitted but no ring mail or heavier (except dragon). Allowing air and earth without anti-training might be odd, and the race does seem generally a bit too strong, although it wouldn't be hard to nerf it once playtesting started.

I don't think a race with +2 and +3 weapon options and 10% more health who simultaneously has good magic aptitudes will need to rely on stealth. With +1 unarmed and 3 transmutations, I'd probably just do my favorite thing of walk up and punch everything to death.

Herbivorous 2 could make it very frustrating to play though. Maybe give it an ability which allows it to generate nutrition - photosynthesis of some sort? Although with nausea removed, it could still be playable as is.

Hmm think you're right about unarmed/transmutations, seems strong, although I do think slow level gain and random stat gain hurts that a bit. Maybe transmutation spells should just be banned... not sure how it would work with the inherent fleshshifting.

Agree herbivore is a bit frustrating, how about sunlight/corona = nutrition? Should really have slow metabolism like true Ent.