Ice Species Idea: Fjoads


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yig

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 13:10

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Thank you for such a thorough re-explanation. I actually do like your idea regarding the semi short xp based cooldown but have two other questions if you don't mind. Do you feel size should factor into the difficulty or should it simply only be usable on small and medium enemies with no distinction. Also, when you say it takes a certain number of turns are you saying that if u ate a difficult creature while fighting a group of 3 that the other 2 left would get a few rounds of hits in on you therefore making it something you would rather use on a final enemy or in emergency situations when there is a specific enemy u need gone?

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 13:20

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

I think the Devour ability could be given earlier than level 10, but that size should affect it. Being able to Devour small ennemies at low leve, medium when reaching 9 and large/naga-sized at level 18 (same levels than DD's mapping, I think ?), maybe ?

yig

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 13:49

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

To be honest i don't see why it cant be much earlier than that. The ability is purely balanced based off the HD of enemies so with my thinking why cant we use it early on to eat some kobolds and bats?

At this point id go with 1 of the 2 examples.

1. A mix of into's and tompliss' ideas. 3 range, success check based on xplvl/hd/size (100% success or increased success rate if target is paralyzed in some way). On success it takes several turns to eat based on the xplvl/hd/size and you get the effects of the meat such as poison. On fail it simply does not work and you essentially lose a turn. On success there is a semi short variable xp based cooldown based on your level.

2. Same as the above only size is not factored at all for easier math and simplicity. There are several ranks of Devour that upgrade as you level and unlock larger sized prey. Perhaps lvl 7 for small creatures and lvl 14 for medium creatures (or even lvl 5 small/lvl 10 medium). I do not think they should be able to eat Hybrid size creatures at all such as Centaurs, Nagas, Fjoads, or anything bigger.

Which one would everyone prefer out of those two?
Last edited by yig on Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 14:15, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 14:13

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

When a frog swallows something whole, it usually isn't dead at the time. Given that what you're swallowing is often armed with sharp steel or poisonous spines or is on fire or whatnot, it could still struggle and attack you from within, trying to cut its way out, and that's the only penalty this needs.

I think that almost anything should be devourable, possible even at great range, but it should get to attack you while you are digesting it. You would have no evasion against these attacks, and a flat AC equal to 8 + 1/2 level (the stomach is especially thick and designed to hold struggling prey), and enemy physical damage would be at half damage before AC (it's hard to move in there), decreasing each turn until the monster dies. Magical/elemental attacks wouldn't be subject to the same reduction in damage, making it more risky to swallow magical/elemental monsters.

Since the monster would only die at the end of this process, you would still defer the XP reward until the swallowed monster stops kicking.

This would also give the fjoad an incentive to paralyze or otherwise incapacitate prey before devouring, since that would prevent them from attacking from within.

yig

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 14:19

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

That actually sounds like an interesting idea, Lasty. Certainly will add that to the list of possibilities due to it adding a bit of realism and grit factor. It does seem like it would require a little bit more of a risk reward element to it though due to the fact that there seems to be very little risk other than with magical creatures. Assuming it takes effort to move and fight (or possibly not based on how sturdy we describe the stomach) while something is trying to slice you open from the inside they could receive a debuff of some kind during the digestion process therefore adding risk/reward when fighting a group.

The only real question that would leave would be how long would it take to digest them? Would that be variable or simply based on them taking scaled damage based on player level each turn till they are dead?

EDIT: I guess the lower Armor against the target in your stomach is pretty risky so it may work as is.

Also, at this point i think its safe to say this species does not need the Aura of Frost ability to be interesting. We just need to work out the exact specifications of devour and that should make them plenty unique.

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 15:52

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

I know lets give them intrinsics of the thing they are currently devouring. Then they can devour a xorn and eat rings to get their mutations! This sounds perfect I have no idea how it could go wrong.
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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 15:55

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Just for the record, human beings can easily digest most forms of metal. Artifacts however, should probably be spit back out.
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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 16:20

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

johlstei wrote:I know lets give them intrinsics of the thing they are currently devouring. Then they can devour a xorn and eat rings to get their mutations! This sounds perfect I have no idea how it could go wrong.

Im pretty sure no one even remotely suggested anything like this. We simply want it to have a chance of poisoning you if u eat poisonous creatures just the same as if u carved them and ate their flesh normally. Same with mutation causing meat such as Ugly Things.

@Tiktacy Then perhaps we could have it destroy most items excluding artifacts. Ultimately everything can be tweaked based on how many side effects there are to using it. For instance making it overall easier to succeed if there are too many consequences therefore balancing out its usefulness.

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 20:22

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

I'd say it makes sense to give Fjoads at least saprovore 1; I mean, they're going around eating things live without even taking their various metal bits off them first.

I had kinda wondered what would happen if you ate something concious; after all, that orc probably isn't going to just let you eat him. Lasty's idea seems like a good place to start. Would ensorcelled hibernation knock enemies out for the duration of digestion, or would they wake up while they're in your stomach? Also, can you eat petrified things?

What do people think about the earlier tongue-snatch idea? At this point, I'd say devour would work fine as a melee-range-only ability, but it would still be nice to have it as a short-ranged attack.
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yig

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Post Tuesday, 12th November 2013, 20:35

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

I was actually thinking about incorporating the tongue pull element if u failed to devour the target since were probably taking away the insta kill factor and making them able to fight back. Fail to devour a small creature and it pulls it in 2 squares (direct melee range) and 1 square for a failed medium creature. Id like to keep devour ranged to emulate how a toad actually eats things, it keeps it more thematic.

The ensorcelled hibernation answer would depend on how we handle the actual digestion process of the creature or we consider the actual devour attempt an attack. Il have to get back to you on that.

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Post Wednesday, 13th November 2013, 13:40

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Every other method of damage wakes up an EH'd creature -- even Refrigeration, now. Seems like being digested would definitely wake them.

yig

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Post Wednesday, 13th November 2013, 14:11

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

So i think the idea im going to go with is...

Devour: 3 Range - Success based on player level/creature HD. On success the target is swallowed and takes scaled damage based on character level every turn while being digested. During this time the creature being digested can make attacks against the player. You will have 0 evasion against these attacks, and a flat AC equal to 8 + 1/2 level (the stomach is especially thick and designed to hold struggling prey), and enemy physical damage would be at half damage before AC (it's hard to move in there). Magical/elemental attacks wouldn't be subject to the same reduction in damage, making it more risky to swallow magical/elemental monsters. Does not work on undead, insubstantial, or Hybrid (Naga/Centaur/Fjoad) sized creatures or larger. After the target is fully digested you gain xp for the kill and a variable amount of nutrition (based on the size of the creature), as well as any effects of the meat from said creature (devouring a demon causes torment). All items that would have been dropped by the digested enemy are destroyed excluding artifacts which are spit back up.

On fail a small creature is pulled two squares towards the player while a medium creature is only pulled 1 square.

This ability is unlocked at level 7 but may only be used on small enemies. At lvl 14 the ability is upgraded to allow you to devour medium sized enemies as well.

With the above changes and the fact it now no longer instant kills targets il need to figure what the restrictions should be.

Regardless, for those who have been providing feedback, does the rules above look good for devour?
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Post Wednesday, 13th November 2013, 15:23

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

This devour ability seems way too complicated. I'd say give it a chance to swallow and instakill small creatures (like rats and bats) mostly for flavour (haha). Anything bigger (or too strong), just pull it toward.
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Post Wednesday, 13th November 2013, 15:53

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Aw, I really like the idea of trying to determine how big of an enemy you can productively devour.

That said, a species with a "pull towards" ability is still pretty sweet.
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Post Wednesday, 13th November 2013, 16:24

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

yig wrote:So i think the idea im going to go with is...

Devour: 3(Maybe 4) Range - Success based on player level/creature HD. On success the target is swallowed and takes scaled damage based on character level every turn while being digested. During this time the creature being digested can make attacks against the player. You will have 0 evasion against these attacks, and a flat AC equal to 8 + 1/2 level (the stomach is especially thick and designed to hold struggling prey), and enemy physical damage would be at half damage before AC (it's hard to move in there). Magical/elemental attacks wouldn't be subject to the same reduction in damage, making it more risky to swallow magical/elemental monsters. Does not work on undead, insubstantial, or Hybrid (Naga/Centaur/Fjoad) sized creatures or larger. After the target is fully digested you gain xp for the kill and a variable amount of nutrition (based on the size of the creature), as well as any effects of the meat from said creature (devouring a demon causes torment). All items that would have been dropped by the digested enemy are destroyed excluding artifacts which are spit back up.

On fail a small creature is pulled two squares towards the player while a medium creature is only pulled 1 square.

This ability is unlocked at level 7 but may only be used on small enemies. At lvl 14 the ability is upgraded to allow you to devour medium sized enemies as well.

With the above changes and the fact it now no longer instant kills targets im not fully sure what the cooldown/restrictions should be.

Regardless, for those who have been providing feedback, does the rules above look good for devour?


I'm really sorry, but I don't like this at all, it just feels way too overcomplicated. Here is a more simplified version, this is my take on it:

Devour 1(gain at level 7): swallows a creature whole and gives you "digesting" status which only disappears after a certain amount of exp has been gained(based on the HD of the creature swallowed). Once digestion disappears, you gain exp for the kill. This does not work on undead, insubstantial, demons, or creatures medium or larger. It will always work on paralyzed(includes petrification and sleeping) creatures, and has an HD to XL chance of failing otherwise. Range of 3 or 4. This cannot be used while sick or exhausted.

Devour 2(gained at level 14): allows devouring of medium sized creatures, and increases the range by 1.

Devour 3(gained at level 21): allows your to devour demons and undead, but swallowing demons causes torment, and undead causes rot based on HD(usually red or dark red). No nutrition is gained this way.

It can be used multiple times, however failing will cost you 1-15%(based on how badly you failed) of your max HP, this CAN kill you. Successful uses will give you nutrition, but eating while full or more will cause sickness, and deal damage as though you failed the attempt. Eating a creature is equal to 2 chunks of nutrition for tiny creatures, 3 for small, and 5 for medium(chunk effects apply, so eating a medium sized mutation creature will cause heavy mutations). Armor and weapons are destroyed in this process, but artifacts will be spit back out after digestion ends.

There are a good amount of things I haven't covered, like stationary creatures and other exceptions like rConstriction, but I want to hear some thoughts on what people think of devour? Is this balanced enough to work and just a bit of tweaking?

I'de like to hear what some of the devs think of fjoads as well btw.
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yig

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Post Wednesday, 13th November 2013, 16:34

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

I don't like the idea of it costing max hp at all but im all for simplifying the crap out of it like you did since it does seem to be getting out of hand. Sure, its cool to picture something being dissolved while trying to fight out but its kinda messy and needlessly complicated especially since im personally unable to code and would be relying on someone else to volunteer and stress over the complexities.

Overall yours looks simple and works id just like a different penalty for failing it. Maybe allow the enemy to get a free attack against you (by attacking your tongue) if it fails.

Give it a xp cooldown based on how weak or strong the devs think the ability is. Being able to insta kill medium creatures periodically is very strong so i do understand the need to limit it but id rather not see max hp being the method used. I also would prefer the player to gain the XP immediately after successfully devouring rather than at the end of the debuff. To me it just feels odd to have it delayed.

Also, if the dev's would rather it simply be used to only insta eat small creatures and pull larger creatures that could be easily arranged and would certainly seem more believable thematically than easily devouring a human whole from a distance but i do like the array of options by allowing medium sized creatures to be devoured.

EDIT: Iv also have been wondering as well what the devs think regarding the overall idea. This species has been a labor of love for me and iv really enjoyed the process of refining them to something that works.

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Post Thursday, 14th November 2013, 07:02

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

I like the idea of devour working on demons/undead being based on your level (your stomach gets stronger as you do, allowing you to eat stuff you couldn't before). I'm not sure on the level progression, though; level 21 seems a little high for when you can start eating demons/undead. Yeah, that's probably the level where you might find yourself exploring the demon-heavy areas of the game, but what about running into stray demons in vaults, or running into a pack of skeletal warriors or something? (I will admit, this is partly because I just really really want to be able to eat those damned crimson imps. Blink away from *that*, you little fuckers!)

Tiktacy wrote:...however failing will cost you 1-15%(based on how badly you failed) of your max HP, this CAN kill you.

Just clarifying: you meant "take damage proportional to your maximum HP", not "lose maximum HP", right? I guess as far as costs go, losing hp like the blink mutation works fairly well.

These guys seem pretty cool. I hope they at least get as far as an experimental branch.
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Post Thursday, 14th November 2013, 11:44

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

spudwalt wrote:I like the idea of devour working on demons/undead being based on your level (your stomach gets stronger as you do, allowing you to eat stuff you couldn't before). I'm not sure on the level progression, though; level 21 seems a little high for when you can start eating demons/undead. Yeah, that's probably the level where you might find yourself exploring the demon-heavy areas of the game, but what about running into stray demons in vaults, or running into a pack of skeletal warriors or something? (I will admit, this is partly because I just really really want to be able to eat those damned crimson imps. Blink away from *that*, you little fuckers!)

Tiktacy wrote:...however failing will cost you 1-15%(based on how badly you failed) of your max HP, this CAN kill you.

Just clarifying: you meant "take damage proportional to your maximum HP", not "lose maximum HP", right? I guess as far as costs go, losing hp like the blink mutation works fairly well.

These guys seem pretty cool. I hope they at least get as far as an experimental branch.


It causes torment and rotting, some newbies may underestimate that.

Also, yes, proportional to max hp, not actual max hp.
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Post Thursday, 14th November 2013, 12:23

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Tiktacy wrote:I'm really sorry, but I don't like this at all, it just feels way too overcomplicated. Here is a more simplified version, this is my take on it:

Overcomplicated devour ability

Seriously guys this is still way too complicated. Remember the constriction debacle. Early designs were awful and they were less complex than that. If you can't explain how the ability works in a couple of sentences in the species description, it's too much. 2 sentences is already a lot, a single one should be enough. If this is the species "defining feature", you're likely to use it hundreds of times per game. And each time, you have to consider 4 or 5 different factors and several side effects to be able to decide if you should use it or not?
Taking damage while digesting the monster is also terrible IMO. What if you misjudged and eat at too low HP? You chug !HW or die? Not very interesting.

About more general feedback on the species, it seems to be ok, but I can't tell if it's really differentiated enough. Also, I disagree with the OP's premise that there is an "ice niche" that needs to be filled. And even if there was, I think it's a bad way to start the design process. Because interesting species are versatile, we have enough specialized ones already.
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yig

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Post Thursday, 14th November 2013, 13:58

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Devour : 4 Range, Success Rate based on XPL/HD. Can be used to instantly devour any tiny, little, or small enemies or pull medium enemy towards you. On success against a tiny, little, or small enemy you instantly devour the target and gain nutrition equal to its max chunks as well as the effects of eating the devoured creatures chunks. If the creature does not produce chunks, no nutrition is gained. On success against a medium enemy you pull them into melee range.

I honestly don't know how to make it any simpler than that. Not being able to devour medium creatures lowers the complexity tremendously and gives it more of a utility purpose. This version is also simple enough to allow for a more lenient cooldown if one at all.

@galehar

With all due respect, I don't think my design method was bad. I started with the intention of making a interesting race that was unique within crawl. Currently there is not a single species with more than a +1 in ice so i figured that was a good place to start. In the end id say the species is simple, believable (compared next to crawls other species), and adds another unique way to play. I also don't think that the Fjoad is a full specialist. Their Apts are varied enough to be used by melee, ranged, or caster characters if desired and the Tongue pull element of devour will be a good utility tool regardless of playstyle.

Regardless, i do completely appreciate your feedback because it helps me refine my ideas.

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Post Thursday, 14th November 2013, 16:50

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Design in almost any arena is a very cyclical process. Please don't get discouraged by feedback, but rather, as you just did, incorporate it into your design.

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Post Thursday, 14th November 2013, 17:49

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

yig wrote:@galehar

With all due respect, I don't think my design method was bad. I started with the intention of making a interesting race that was unique within crawl. Currently there is not a single species with more than a +1 in ice so i figured that was a good place to start. In the end id say the species is simple, believable (compared next to crawls other species), and adds another unique way to play. I also don't think that the Fjoad is a full specialist. Their Apts are varied enough to be used by melee, ranged, or caster characters if desired and the Tongue pull element of devour will be a good utility tool regardless of playstyle.

Regardless, i do completely appreciate your feedback because it helps me refine my ideas.



If it actually is too specialized, then in the tournament after it is introduced, it will simply be a Nememex Choice with tough combos, like FE.

Anyway, it sounds like an awesome addition. If we can have sentient cats and humanoid-ant hybrids, I don't see how this doesn't fit.
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yig

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Post Monday, 18th November 2013, 15:51

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Still here, just been busy with other things for a few. Im going to try and refine things a bit more and look over possible ways to get a test build of these into a crawl version through some tutorials. If there is anyone out there proficient enough with adding species to make this easier i would certainly appreciate the help.

Also, any suggestions on the formula for Devour success would be awesome.
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Post Monday, 18th November 2013, 16:11

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Just for the record, toads aren't amphiguous and don't have huge tongues. They still eat things whole though.
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Post Monday, 18th November 2013, 20:56

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Can we know what are devs opinions about this race?
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Post Tuesday, 19th November 2013, 02:56

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

I don't think that a race with its only real special thing being a tongue pull is interesting. It's (supposed to be) a major race defining mechanic that has to be manually used, and that's too fiddly. At least this one is because the use of it isn't significant in its effects or cost or anything. Pull an enemy to you? I can save one or two turns against a ranged enemy once in a while... if it passes a check? Well ok... I don't think it would be useful more than 5 times per game, that is if the check makes it worth using at all. Remove the check to make it useful. Even then it's pretty boring because it's only good for saving 1 or 2 turns vs ranged enemies at the cost of having to activate a targetable ability. For characters that mainly use spells or launchers, it's almost entirely useless, only good to make centaurs and yaktaurs hit you instead of shooting you (again saving 1 or 2 turns, except ranged characters often don't bother getting into melee range with these enemies).

Now for the other racial features. Really the best thing this race has is potion conservation, that's because item destruction is annoying. Carnivorous 3 and slow metab is just fluff.
Fire vuln and rC++. There's already one race with rF- and rC+. I can't say this is interesting because it comes down to finding and wearing rF, and ignoring rC. It's more of a negative than a positive, combined with...
Deformed body, can't wear boots, gloves or helmets. Large size. They get relatively kind of crappy AC and EV. HP apt is 0. Ok. You could say the good apts compensate for this. I think that's it. The tongue pull won't ever be a compensation. I think your initial idea with the freezing aura thing could've potentially been interesting as a compensation for the lower than average defenses. No idea how to make it good though. One thing to note is that ozocubu's armour is an incredibly good spell for this race, given their bad-ish defenses and good apt in ice magic (and charms). Seems like most characters of this race would want to get this spell (this is bad).

Good aptitude in ice magic. A good aptitude in one skill for the sake of being good at that skill is NOT something interesting. Ice magic is "interesting" for 1 starting background out of 26. The others aren't affected by this ice magic apt in any way until they find a book with ice spells. Then they have to decide to train ice magic, which is more likely with this race than others, yet it's still not interesting; if anything it means more characters of this race will play similarly and that's not good (and if not then it's still not interesting, just disappointing that a big reason for 1 race existing is being good at 1 skill). Characters of a race playing similarly in some ways isn't inherently bad, that's a direct effect of them not being humans or demigods (or a few other well designed races). However, when the reason for characters of a race playing similarly is "they're good at ice magic and that's that", it's not a good reason, there's nothing to be gained from it.

My suggestion is to give them an apt of 1 or 2 at most, and give them a stronger ice theme in ways that isn't the ice magic apt. Ice and cold related flavor text can be used to describe various interesting game effects. Metabolic englaciation didn't have to be ice flavored, it could've been called "mass slow". Slow is the obvious effect to use with ice flavor text but really you can think of many other things. I would try to avoid slow actually. Off the top of my head: enemies hitting the toad with a melee attack have a chance to be frozen and stuck to its skin. If the toad then moves in such a way that the enemy isn't next to it anymore, the enemy will be dragged after it (into the square the player occupied). Multiple enemies can get frozen, and will all be pulled if space allows (that's what the large size is for), otherwise they get unstuck. How is this good, now the toad can't run away from enemies?? Well that's where you start making a race that works in an interesting way that applies to a large variety of situations (getting hit with a melee attack is pretty common). The enemies can receive penalties, they could have a chance to be frozen to the ground after some turns being stuck and then moving away would leave them stuck to the ground instead of the toad, bla bla you can think of anything.

Edit: Just keep the effects passive (not manually activated, not like tongue pull), and simple to understand and use. I would say my suggested idea is simple to understand and use. It's used by being hit with melee attacks, no effort required there. It's further used by moving, moving is a pretty simple and common thing, and the monster being dragged into the space previously occupied by the player isn't hard to understand either I would hope.

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Post Tuesday, 19th November 2013, 06:17

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

That's a very good analysis, Wahaha.

Stickiness makes sense on toads even without cold flavor—it also works with an ice theme, too, of course. But it isn't necessary.

I agree that tongue pull, by itself, is not very interesting. But activated abilities *can* be a major part of a species, in a way that works (Draconians and Naga, for instance). I liked the original devour—very powerful ability, but you have to be selective in how you use it, because you have to "digest" (gain X experience) between meals. No other species ability is quite like that. The problem is that it for many, in practice, it would probably just be used simply to cheese uniques, with people hoarding their use of it until Nikola shows up or something. Which is bad both in that people won't really think very much about when/how to use the ability, and also because having a hard "anti-unique" counter isn't a good thing.

So, revised idea: Fjoad's can only devour prey that they are able to (momentarily) mislead and surprise. Thus, enemies above animal intelligence (including all—or nearly all, if perhaps I'm missing something—uniques) are immune to the effect. However, there is no check. The intelligence limitation, period of "digestion" (which counts down as experience is gained), and the fact that the devour ability takes a few turns (like eating a ration) are what balance it out. I think that would work.

Other things could be incorporated into the species, in addition. I agree with Wahaha that large size + some fairly substantial armor limitations + normal movement speed and HP apt, altogether mean that you would want the species to have some powerful tricks up its sleeve. And it also means that the species could have some powerful tricks without being too strong. I'm thinking devour (level-independent once becomes accessible, but you only get it slightly later, like maybe Lvl 12) + some sort of passive ice-themed ability that starts earlier but scales up with level.

As for the latter, I do rather like the stickiness idea that Wahaha suggested. Simply having the enemies get a chance to stick to you, but take substantial cold damage (based on your level) over time. (And would be different from Ds passive freeze mutation as well as constriction, thanks to the stickiness componenet.) Cold resistant enemies could be immune to getting stuck to you, in the first place, so you don't end up carting around an ice beast that takes no damage.
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Tuesday, 19th November 2013, 06:30

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

and into wrote:The problem is that it for many, in practice, it would probably just be used simply to cheese uniques, with people hoarding their use of it until Nikola shows up or something. Which is bad both in that people won't really think very much about when/how to use the ability, and also because having a hard "anti-unique" counter isn't a good thing.

Focusing this much on the initial implementation being anti-metagamey is just asking for crippling the ability to no end.
Because we'll always find and exploit what funny little things we find, and keeping an insta-kill ability until you stumble upon some tough unique sounds like a bad idea in the part of the game that even easy enemies kill you in.
take it easy
  Code:
!lg * won !DD-- min=turns -log
<Sequell> 20749. Bloax, XL24 VSTm, T:13320: http://crawl.lantea.net/crawl/morgue/Bloax/morgue-Bloax-20140907-000920.txt

Did you know that I like ruining crawl every now and then? Go check it out.

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Post Tuesday, 19th November 2013, 07:20

Re: Ice Species Idea: Fjoads

Bloax wrote:
and into wrote:The problem is that it for many, in practice, it would probably just be used simply to cheese uniques, with people hoarding their use of it until Nikola shows up or something. Which is bad both in that people won't really think very much about when/how to use the ability, and also because having a hard "anti-unique" counter isn't a good thing.

Focusing this much on the initial implementation being anti-metagamey is just asking for crippling the ability to no end.
Because we'll always find and exploit what funny little things we find, and keeping an insta-kill ability until you stumble upon some tough unique sounds like a bad idea in the part of the game that even easy enemies kill you in.


Well, uniques are often very big threats throughout the game, and my suggestion was for the devour ability to come online at lvl 12 (still pretty early, but usually your character is well on its way by then). But your overall point is fair. My concern was that people might "hoard" an ability like this, which would defeat the purpose (since what is interesting about it isn't that it is powerful (insta-kill), but that it has a significant exp-based cooldown that makes deciding when to use it a nontrivial question)—but perhaps the best way to address that would be in the details. (i.e., exactly how long is cooldown?)
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