New Species: Gargoyle


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

Zot Zealot

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 00:57

Re: New Species: Grotesk

They also get rC+, rN+, and two auxiliary attacks from the start. If anything they're a less beastly troll with better apts and defensive stats.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 02:18

Re: New Species: Grotesk

The problem is that there's no race which is actually good at unarmed combat. The highest apt is +1, compared to +4 polearms; etc. I've mentioned this in other threads. So nerfing gargoyles on what was actually unique about them bothers me, and others apparently. I'd much rather they lower conjurations, fighting, anything else really. Just that most of the other apts are already pretty low.

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 02:39

Re: New Species: Grotesk

i'd rather merfolk became more interesting by not having +4 polearms too but that isnt going to happen

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 04:19

Re: New Species: Grotesk

many races have signature weapons... Trolls have unarmed, ogres have maces, merfolk have polearms, centaurs have bows, minotaurs have everything because screw balance.

With now nearly 30 races, having 30 generalist races isn't really an improvement over 20 general races and 10 niche races. Having a mix is more interesting, not less.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 06:39

Re: New Species: Grotesk

I think UC should not have high aptitude. With +4 Polearms you still need to find and enchant a bardiche, with 27 UC you don't need a weapon but deal more damage than any +9 bardiche

Temple Termagant

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 07:17

Re: New Species: Grotesk

I don't personally see nerfing aptitudes making any race more interesting. Even if you nerf Polearms they're still going to be the weapon of choice for Merfolk, and you're still going to, with high likelihood, pick Merfolk for Polearms. All you're doing is delaying the progression of other skills slightly- not an interesting development. Nerf it too much and you simply end up taking away something that's meant to set Merfolk apart from other races, which is even worse.

I'm okay with UC having relatively low aptitudes in relation to other weapon types, however nerfing +2 UC to +1 is when you get to the point where you're taking away something that sets Gargoyles apart. Gargoyles have more HP than Sludge Elves, you say? So do Merfolk, so do Lava Orcs, both of whom also have +3 Transmutations aptitudes. Lava Orcs also come with swiftness, fire aura, and all that other silliness as well, because their main racial quirk actually has a considerable effect on gameplay. Gargoyles' does not, because it's purely defensive, leaves you vulnerable, and players have long since learned how to simply not get themselves in situations where they would need to use such a risky ability in the first place.

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 07:38

Re: New Species: Grotesk

If the only thing that sets gargoyles apart from other races is their aptitudes they need a serious rework. I don't think the goal is to remove one race that has nothing interesting but some changed aptitudes (SE) and then immediately add a race that is exactly the same thing.

Aptitudes don't seem to me to be an important thing to discuss here.

@Sedrahl: by far the most interesting aptitudes in the game for gameplay are flat aptitudes, which is what humans have. They are especially good for races where the main differentiation from humans is a gimmick (op, na, ds, etc.) instead of just aptitudes, because it's much more interesting to be able to play both an ice elementalist and a fire elementalist and a fighter and a hunter all reasonably well instead of being mostly limited to a few handfuls of good backgrounds. It's true that Mf are a lot like humans except for aptitudes but if their polearms were merely +2 or maybe even +3 instead of +4 then you would at least consider using long blades on a merfolk if you found a good one, which would make them more interesting for me.

Temple Termagant

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 08:59

Re: New Species: Grotesk

I very much agree that aptitudes should not be the only thing setting a race apart. In a perfect world aptitudes wouldn't be necessary in the first place because every race would have an interesting set of traits that give them a unique gameplay experience regardless of what they play as. However that simply isn't the case, and as such aptitudes are currently a major factor that needs to be taken into account for every species.

However, the aptitude issue is fine. Gargoyles' aptitudes are not the problem here, and even with only +1 UC it's not something that will detract from them any noticeable amount. The problem is their primary racial gimmick. It's not gameplay-changing in any way whatsoever, in the way that size category, nutritional needs, or equipment limitations are. Players can and probably will do Gargoyle wins without using the ability once, because it adds unnecessary risk for no reward. Even worse, it directly encroaches on the territory of spells that already exist in this game. Self-Petrification (the ability) needs to be scrapped because there is no good way to make it something players will want to use. Nerfing Gargoyles so that they have to use it out of necessity is a bad idea, because that will immediately drop them into "challenge race" territory and nobody will play them, and I think buffing it until there's incentive to use it frequently will inevitably end with it being "Statue Form, but better".

Meanwhile, making Self-Petrification an ability basically eliminates the possibility of creativity on the player's part. There is no reason they couldn't leave it to the player to realize on their own that they could take advantage of Gargoyle's slow Petrification period and improved Petrification stats by casting it on themselves. Turning it into an ability takes any thought out of the process, and brazenly passes up on the chance to bring an interesting new use to an existing spell. Use Gargoyles to add a new twist to existing content, don't add an ability and pretend spells like Petrification and Statue Form don't exist.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 10:04

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I sort of think duration is the main issue on self-petrify. You're really not getting very many turns of damage reduction before you're completely immobile, which especially hurts in the early game when you're not nearly as likely to have the tools at hand to deal a bunch of hurt quickly.

I don't have a problem with the drawbacks per se, but right now it feels as though the drawbacks significantly outweigh the benefits.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 10:59

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Why not make it a bit more true to the source and have self-petrification mean you are more uninteresting to monsters? Have it so that unintelligent monsters lose interest, while intelligent monsters have a much lower chance but will end up wandering a bit or going to sleep, as if they were sitting around waiting for you to unpetrify.
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 14:38

Re: New Species: Grotesk

Sedrahl wrote:Meanwhile, making Self-Petrification an ability basically eliminates the possibility of creativity on the player's part. There is no reason they couldn't leave it to the player to realize on their own that they could take advantage of Gargoyle's slow Petrification period and improved Petrification stats by casting it on themselves. Turning it into an ability takes any thought out of the process, and brazenly passes up on the chance to bring an interesting new use to an existing spell. Use Gargoyles to add a new twist to existing content, don't add an ability and pretend spells like Petrification and Statue Form don't exist.

I shouldn't need to be all clever to figure out that a species's main distinguishing feature is a thing.

Yes, figuring out I could cast petrify on myself would be totally neat and make me feel all smart. Once. Having it as an ability tells me that on Gr, petrification is something I should actively seek out, at least in some cases.

Figuring out when it's a good idea makes me feel clever every time I get it right.
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Bim

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 14:41

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Sedrahl wrote:Self-Petrification (the ability) needs to be scrapped because there is no good way to make it something players will want to use. Nerfing Gargoyles so that they have to use it out of necessity is a bad idea, because that will immediately drop them into "challenge race" territory and nobody will play them, and I think buffing it until there's incentive to use it frequently will inevitably end with it being "Statue Form, but better".


Yes yes yes. I like Gargoyles, I really do - I think an Earth based unarmed fighter is interesting and a niche (as far as niches go in crawl - which is fine) and adding some extra defence in (like shields or armour) would push it further that way. I just find (after many, many games) that their ability is just not useful for pretty much any situation. As has been mentioned, it's a trade off ability which almost negates itself - you get DR, but you take more hits, and becoming paralysed is never a good thing - hence why paralysis and petrified are monster spells. I'm sure there are one or two opportunities when it can be used, but it does measure up to pretty much any other racial ability in interest or usefulness.

How about adding a lunge ability (ala gargoyles lunging out of the walls at someone)? It's always been popular and it could be mixed with a turn or twos paralysis (to turn to stone or something) to add to the 'statue' aspect.
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Temple Termagant

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 15:31

Re: New Species: Grotesk

njvack wrote:I shouldn't need to be all clever to figure out that a species's main distinguishing feature is a thing.


The problem is that Self Petrify simply will not work as the main distinguishing feature. The number of situations where it would actually be useful (most likely as a last-minute durability boost while trying to teleport from a really bad situation at low and mid level) are very limited, and that's not going to change without obscene buffs to the point where it overrides the purpose of Statue Form aka "Self-Petrification for Combat Purposes" entirely. As such, making an ability out of Self Petrify and calling it the race's primary feature simply will not work.

Furthermore, part of the problem is that the mutation screen entry is much too vague. Last I checked it only really mentions the increased duration, but not the other benefits, and elaborating even a little bit more would make it plenty easy for people to realize that it might not be such a bad idea to hold onto that Petrify spell for emergencies.

For this message the author Sedrahl has received thanks:
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 17:07

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

So I think recent discussion on the ability being bad is true - I won a 4 rune gargoyle and I never used the ability, see below. I would probably recommend to other players to not use the ability at all.

I think TeshiAlair's general idea of changing it to being a hiding ability, ie, stone form for escaping rather than statue form being for combat would make sense. Something where you hide from monsters based either on their intelligence, see invis, or giving you high stealth and making current chasers forget where you are? I'd throw in a regeneration effect, so you're restoring yourself while hidden, make it last a fairly long time (10-15 turns?) and you hopefully come out of it better than you went in. Maybe have it break earlier if you are being attacked?

Being able to drop out of combat while you're in the middle of an open area would probably look silly, although invis does work about the same way for stupid monsters :)


Edit: nevermind, I used the ability 0 times. I used it twice on my previous attempt that died to mara. this game, I never used it. Action table for the winning run:

  Code:
Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 | 16-18 | 19-21 | 22-24 | 25-27 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Unarmed           |    12 |     4 |    59 |   240 |   820 |  1083 |  1300 |   698 |  3470 ||  7686
Throw: Javelin           |       |       |       |     6 |     7 |    12 |       |     2 |     3 ||    30
 Cast: Sandblast         |    37 |    94 |   116 |    31 |       |       |       |       |       ||   278
       Stone Arrow       |       |    13 |    79 |   335 |   321 |    46 |     9 |     1 |     2 ||   806
       Lee's Rapid Decon |       |     1 |    10 |    39 |    57 |    38 |     5 |    16 |    28 ||   194
       Passwall          |       |       |       |     3 |       |       |       |       |       ||     3
       Sublimation of Bl |       |       |       |    17 |    43 |       |       |     6 |    13 ||    79
       Iron Shot         |       |       |       |     9 |    79 |    80 |    31 |    24 |    87 ||   310
       Stoneskin         |       |       |       |     2 |     4 |    17 |    44 |    38 |   123 ||   228
       Apportation       |       |       |       |     2 |       |       |       |       |       ||     2
       Statue Form       |       |       |       |       |       |    12 |    59 |    37 |   100 ||   208
       Regeneration      |       |       |       |       |       |       |    44 |    56 |   223 ||   323
       Ozocubu's Armour  |       |       |       |       |       |       |     1 |       |       ||     1
       Flight            |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |     4 |    13 ||    17
       Abjuration        |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |    15 ||    15
       Dig               |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |     9 ||     9
       Mass Abjuration   |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |     9 ||     9
Invok: Slouch            |       |       |       |     1 |    13 |    14 |     1 |     9 |    23 ||    61
       Step From Time    |       |       |       |       |     3 |       |       |       |     1 ||     4
       Temporal Distorti |       |       |       |       |     1 |       |     4 |     7 |     8 ||    20
 Abil: End Transformatio |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |     1 |     3 ||     4
Evoke: Wand              |       |       |     2 |     6 |    17 |     1 |    11 |     3 |    12 ||    52
       Rod               |       |       |       |     2 |       |       |       |       |     1 ||     3
       Miscellaneous     |       |       |       |       |     1 |     1 |       |       |     2 ||     4
  Use: Scroll            |       |     2 |     6 |    15 |    19 |    12 |    19 |     4 |    32 ||   109
       Potion            |       |       |     1 |     4 |     9 |     4 |       |     4 |     9 ||    31
 Stab: Distracted        |       |       |     1 |     1 |     1 |     2 |     5 |       |     5 ||    15
       Sleeping          |       |       |       |       |     6 |     7 |    15 |     2 |    14 ||    44
       Petrified         |       |       |       |       |     1 |       |       |       |       ||     1
       Confused          |       |       |       |       |       |       |     1 |       |       ||     1
       Fleeing           |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |     3 ||     3
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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 17:47

Re: New Species: Grotesk

Sedrahl wrote:The problem is that Self Petrify simply will not work as the main distinguishing feature.

Why? I'm a bit skeptical too, but I wouldn't use such a definitive statement. There are knobs to tweak the effect and it's possible to make it overpowered just by changing the durations for example. So it's probably possible to make it balanced. The real question is "can it be made interesting?".
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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 17:52

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

tasonir wrote:Being able to drop out of combat while you're in the middle of an open area would probably look silly, although invis does work about the same way for stupid monsters :)


I had a similar idea, but was thinking you'd have to use it out of sight of enemies to fool them. So, duck round a corner, activate ability, and the monsters will wander past you clueless. Perhaps difficult to make it work well in practise but a fun stealth effect.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 17:56

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

That could certainly work, although it might be difficult to break sight entirely for melee characters who are up close. Would be very handy for EE's who still have range and can break sight easily. If you ever get to controlled blink it would combo very strongly, perhaps too easily. It would definitely reward ranged/mobile characters with blink, though.

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 18:48

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

tasonir wrote:That could certainly work, although it might be difficult to break sight entirely for melee characters who are up close. Would be very handy for EE's who still have range and can break sight easily. If you ever get to controlled blink it would combo very strongly, perhaps too easily. It would definitely reward ranged/mobile characters with blink, though.
I had a similar idea, but was thinking you'd have to use it out of sight of enemies to fool them. So, duck round a corner, activate ability, and the monsters will wander past you clueless. Perhaps difficult to make it work well in practise but a fun stealth effect.[/quote]

As Gargoyles are mostly pushed towards melee combat (especially if UC is raised to +2/3 (and it really should)) then I doubt this would be too unbalanced and would be a really fun effect (with quite a lot of usefulness). I would propose that it only worked by walls, and it drained all mp and stat rot (and maybe drained some hp as well?) on doing it. Also By the time you've got Cblink you probably won't have too much trouble escaping regardless.

Would it be possible to special case swift/haste so that gargoyles can't use them? This would be different from slow movement, but would mean that you couldn't simply swift around a corner and be invisible.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 18:59

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I agree gargs should have higher UC. I don't think removing swift/haste would be a good idea, it steps too much on Chei's flaws. You'd be basically saying make an unarmed fighter of Chei. I would personally love this, but I doubt you'll find widespread approval.

I think the only working next to walls is a very good suggestion though. Maybe make it so that you can temporarily meld or just blend in (perfect/near perfect invisibility?) with a wall, and rest for a while before you emerge again? When in trouble, you run to the nearest wall, hide there, and are saved. To balance it, adjust the stat rot/exhaustion timers so that it can't be used too frequently.

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 19:29

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Is "turn into something that monsters won't attack for a while" sufficiently different from Chei's "step from time?" Is the difference that a gargoyle would heal, and not quite as much time passes?

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 20:32

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Ahh didn't think about the Chei overlap with haste/swift. I don't think that 'turning into something that monsters won't attack for a while' steps too badly on Chei though, as you've got to find a wall, be out of sight and you get more heavily punished.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 20:51

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I think it's different enough. I'd say it matches more closely with octopode's bonus to stealth, really. Blend in with the environment to escape. Gargoyle's would be a more effective activated ability rather than a passive boost. It would be limited by needing a wall, which would make the new forest branch as well as swamp more dangerous to gargoyles.

I think "stone" abilities tend to naturally overlap with Chei because of the properties of stone: enduring, slow, solid. Just an abstract flavor component that I didn't really notice at first but after thinking about the ability more gargoyles and chei seem more and more linked.

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 22:12

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I just played a half dozen or so, focusing on unarmed combat and/or earth magic.
I never used the self-petrify ability because I never felt that it would reliably improve my situation, relative to my other options.

Perhaps the idea to have them blend in with the walls would be nice; rather like a rock-worm, but instead of you entering the wall for cover, the wall would blister out to encompass you. The monsters would think, "oh well, I guess he'll be there forever, best move on." But it would function a bit like step-from-time so the waiting period would not be conscious and would be a set number of turns. On the other hand, some monsters might not be so easily dissuaded and the protective cover could be interrupted by certain attacks, e.g. smite, torment, shatter, etc.

From an UC/earth character, it felt like I was playing a strong version of a sludge elf. Flavour-wise more interesting; aptitude/intrinsics-wise substantially stronger.

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 00:31

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Gargoyles currently can't self-petrify in forms, but the self-petrification mutation is not marked as suppressable in the mutations screen.

You can still set off the petrification and then change form to make it work the exact same way, though, so they should get to self-petrify in forms too.
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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 04:04

Re: New Species: Grotesk

tasonir wrote:imho add a regeneration effect to petrify. Probably just a standard 1hp/sec regen, same as the spell, takes effect as soon as you start petrifying and lasts until the turn you turn back to flesh.


I added a regeneration effect.

I'm ambivalent about turning too many knobs at once. There's a danger of giving them a 'win game' button. If this racial shtick doesn't work, I'm totally open to replacing it (here's looking at you, great-players, for suggestions).

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 06:29

Re: New Species: Grotesk

brendan wrote:
tasonir wrote:imho add a regeneration effect to petrify. Probably just a standard 1hp/sec regen, same as the spell, takes effect as soon as you start petrifying and lasts until the turn you turn back to flesh.


I added a regeneration effect.

I'm ambivalent about turning too many knobs at once. There's a danger of giving them a 'win game' button. If this racial shtick doesn't work, I'm totally open to replacing it (here's looking at you, great-players, for suggestions).

I think it's totally fine, but possibly making Gargoyles immune to trample knockback could be part of their thing?
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Temple Termagant

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 11:37

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I like the statue disguise idea a lot. Reworking Gargoyle's ability into a utility rather than a combat buff gives it it's own specific niche, basically eliminating any issues with overlapping the roles of other abilities, it also makes Gargoyle's +2 stealth aptitude and slow metabolism more appropriate. What I especially like about it is the high synergy with Passwall.

Would it be possible to make it a passive ability rather than active? For example, waiting for X consecutive turns will trigger the effect, and you can prolong it as long as you continue waiting. It seems like it would be a bit more intuitive than an active with a pre-set duration.

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 12:22

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I don't think it would be a 'win button', although I do think it needs to be a nearly perfect invisiblity (as in, not just a stealth boost) because you are going to have to stop and turn into a statue instead of running away and using something else. I think if it had a long timer/high cost it would balance the boost of being able to escape a lot of slow foes.

I've just not really seen any occasion after quite a few games where self-petrification is useful and desirable (and it's great to see you're open to ideas brendan).

Also, I have to say I'm not too keen on the idea of it being passive, as it might be quite time consuming to keep triggering it and it doesn't tactically or strategically add very much, other than a less chance to be randomly happened upon, in my opinion. I mean lets say it takes 5 turns, thats way too long if you're trying to escape something, and other than that I don't see the use.
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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 12:46

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Fair enough. While it may or may not be useful to be able to choose how long you stay as a statue, I failed to take into account that it would generate needless micro/waste time to do so.

It would also be more difficult to balance a passive, I imagine.
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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 14:35

Re: New Species: Grotesk

crate wrote:I think the best thing I heard was someone on irc saying "a defensive boost followed by a defensive vulnerability isn't interesting, while an offensive boost followed by defensive vulnerability is" or something like that. Obviously that sounds a lot like berserk but berserk is an interesting and good mechanic.


I haven't heard complaints about Death's Door, which is rather like a defensive boost followed by vulnerability...
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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 17:35

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I found a pretty good use for the self-petrification:
I had run out of MP following LRD'ing of an orc warrior, but I wanted to do the same to Joseph. So, I put a bat skeleton between us in a corridor and self-petrified a few times until my MP was full.

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 19:19

Re: New Species: Grotesk

njvack wrote:
crate wrote:I think the best thing I heard was someone on irc saying "a defensive boost followed by a defensive vulnerability isn't interesting, while an offensive boost followed by defensive vulnerability is" or something like that. Obviously that sounds a lot like berserk but berserk is an interesting and good mechanic.


I haven't heard complaints about Death's Door, which is rather like a defensive boost followed by vulnerability...

in practice ddoor is actually invulnerability followed by more invulnerability
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Post Wednesday, 5th June 2013, 04:23

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

What if we converted self-petrify into a toggle?

Fleshy mode would be mostly human-like.
Stone mode could, for example, get DR (at the cost of stat damage), resist bumps, and slow movement.

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Post Wednesday, 5th June 2013, 05:31

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

brendan wrote:What if we converted self-petrify into a toggle?

Fleshy mode would be mostly human-like.
Stone mode could, for example, get DR (at the cost of stat damage), resist bumps, and slow movement.


I think that's a much better and interesting idea than how it works right now, as long as it doesn't reduce EV (or at least not too much). Flesh form has no bonuses, stone form has bonuses but you pay for them with stat drain. I'm concerned about torment causing too much stat drain though.

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Post Wednesday, 5th June 2013, 06:35

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

A toggle would be much better.
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Post Wednesday, 5th June 2013, 11:56

Re: New Species: Grotesk

crate wrote:in practice ddoor is actually invulnerability followed by more invulnerability

Right. So, somewhere between "ddoor as a racial intrinsic" and the current implementation, there's probably a sweet spot where it's useful but not game-breaking, right?
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Post Wednesday, 5th June 2013, 15:29

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

The issue (or maybe not) with going for weaker, racial equivalent to another spell is that it's inevitably going to be obsoleted by simply learning that spell. Sure that may not happen until the post-endgame anyway, I just prefer the idea of racial features that are relevant all game long. Racials offer the unique property of not being, and so are usable in a non-magical playstyle, however I think gargoyles are much more suited toward hybrid playstyle to go that route. (Or at least, go that route all game long.

Granted, Gargoyles are pretty bad at Necromancy so it would take some time for them to get DDoor in the first place.

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Post Wednesday, 5th June 2013, 17:05

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

"Simply learning the spell" takes significant skill investment. Is the tengu ability obsolete because flight and swiftness are spells? No, because by making it a racial ability you don't need the spells.

And anyways, petrify is really nothing like ddoor, it's a poor comparison.
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Post Wednesday, 5th June 2013, 18:18

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I didn't mean to say "selfpet is like ddoor" just "defensive boosts can be strong and interesting." The fundamental idea behind selfpet is solid.

FWIW, I think it's more interesting as something that you start and then runs to completion than as a toggle.
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Post Thursday, 6th June 2013, 00:43

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

You're right that defensive boosts can be strong and interesting. The problem with self-petrify as it stands is that the situations where you'd use it (against an enemy that hits particularly hard, e.g.: bees, or has an attack you don't have the appropriate resistance for, e.g.: eels), are generally exactly the situations where you can't afford the consequences (halved EV, being slowed, being petrified). The only way to really use it in combat is in a situation where without it you would not be able to outdamage your opponent(s) before dying, but where you are also going to be able to kill your opponent(s) before the petrification kicks in. This situation is pretty rare and it is almost always going to be safer to either buff offensively (might/haste/etc) or just run away.

Toggling makes it a bit more useful because at least you can control the duration. Then the situation where you misjudge how many hits the hydra can take doesn't necessarily end in your inevitable death while you sit stoned and helpless. By the way, I think doing something like "you can't drink potions" would be a better cost for self-petrify than stat rot, if it gets turned into a toggle ability. Also possibly more thematic.

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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 00:13

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I have removed self-petrification.
Gargoyles are now resistant to trampling.

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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 00:58

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Oh man, I'm going to be SO excited to fight elephants and dragons now
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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 01:54

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I hate to say it, but what justification is there left for adding in Gargoyle to the species lineup after you take out self-petrification? The species comes off right now being extremely similar blend of Deep Dwarves and Sludge Elves - as is we might as well just bump up Sludge Elves Staves skill and improve Conjurations and Unarmed Combat for Deep Dwarves. It doesn't seem like the Gargoyles aptitudes are filling enough of a niche and being immune to trampling and petrification doesn't sound like enough of a distinguishing factor for their inclusion.
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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 02:12

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

I also hate to say it, so much I won't have if Davion Fuxa hadn't brought it up, but I agree that gargoyles don't really have a purpose. Trampling resistance is a neat idea, but I don't think it's enough to support a species. The "elemental master" thing wasn't enough to save Sludge Elves from removal. I already found Gargoyles a bit flat from all the incentives to use unarmed.

There is probably a solution somewhere- something like giving them Gnome walk through walls or a +5 Invocations apt - but right now I can't see much going for them.

I think the Resist Petrification/Immune to Trampling/Good Petrification might make a decent Demonspawn mutation set, though. It'd be interesting to have an Earth counterpart to the Ice and Fire ones, and would be a neat use of all the work put into the species.
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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 02:25

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

How about if they could create shafts or otherwise travel between levels without stairs.

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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 02:52

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

They're Gargoyles, not mole-men or rock worms. What do Gargoyles do?

-Act as a downspout (Make them like a grey draconian!)
-Observe silently (Maybe an ability to detect monsters for a short time?)
-Scare evil spirits away from churches. (Maybe a fear-like effect?)

-Gargoyle monsters are rElec++, but do not resist cold. (Giving players rElec may be weak, since they have poor Air and will likely have antitraining as well, so are unlikely to be bouncing lightning off themselves)


Any of these could, of course, be received at an appropriate level.
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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 03:13

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Davion Fuxa wrote:...we might as well just bump up Sludge Elves Staves skill and improve Conjurations and Unarmed Combat for Deep Dwarves. It doesn't seem like the Gargoyles aptitudes are filling enough of a niche and being immune to trampling and petrification doesn't sound like enough of a distinguishing factor for their inclusion.


Sludge Elves were removed from the game.

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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 03:18

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

brendan wrote:Sludge Elves were removed from the game.


That's a red herring. I was also tempted to say that Gargoyles look like really downgraded versions of Mountain Dwarves but I figured that was going too many versions back.
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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 03:27

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

Elementally, I think Gargoyles need greater skill differences than Deep Dwarfs; possilbly bump Ice to +2, or even embrace Ice and rework the species concept.
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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 04:09

Re: New Species: Gargoyle

XuaXua wrote:Elementally, I think Gargoyles need greater skill differences than Deep Dwarfs; possilbly bump Ice to +2, or even embrace Ice and rework the species concept.


Deep Dwarves are the no-healing gimmick race. That is their thing. Any race that can heal is sufficiently different from them.
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