New Race: Golem


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

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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 15:13

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:Mundane items (no brand and no enchantment) are never runed or glowing or whatever. makeitem.cc lines 3432 and 3409.

I've checked again, and this is not exactly true. First, mundane items are just clubs and animal skins not +0 ones. But items still need to be enchanted to receive an adjective. There's just one exception. Racial weapons have 1 chance in 7 to get one even if not enchanted. We can remove this, it's completely useless.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 15:21

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:I agree. Seems we've reached the point where the thing can be wikified. You can put "options" in the wiki page. The basic features we've discussed first, and then the "alternative" ones we've considered (no regen, hungerless and nutrition storage).

Alright. Only this might take some time. It is definitely easier to edit forum post than wiki page for me.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 15:34

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:
galehar wrote:I agree. Seems we've reached the point where the thing can be wikified. You can put "options" in the wiki page. The basic features we've discussed first, and then the "alternative" ones we've considered (no regen, hungerless and nutrition storage).

Alright. Only this might take some time. It is definitely easier to edit forum post than wiki page for me.

Take your time. Wait a few days, this thread might still see some action and ideas can mature in your mind too. And you'll have a hard time finding someone to code it in the middle of the tournament anyway :)

By the way, for pretty cool golems (and fun story), I recommend Terry Pratchett's Going Postal.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 15:47

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:Take your time. Wait a few days, this thread might still see some action and ideas can mature in your mind too.

Also I will familiarize with wiki tags for a change of pace. Never really understood how they work.
galehar wrote:And you'll have a hard time finding someone to code it in the middle of the tournament anyway :)

I hope you are talking about yourself :) Because I doubt that anyone else, especially game developer, have similar perception of golems as I do.

galehar wrote:By the way, for pretty cool golems (and fun story), I recommend Terry Pratchett's Going Postal.

Hah! Read it along with whole Pratchett's Disc world series long time ago. Big fan of him. Actually, scroll-in-a-head idea was inspired pretty much by him, and also whole concept is heavily influenced by DW's golems.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 15:55

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:
galehar wrote:And you'll have a hard time finding someone to code it in the middle of the tournament anyway :)

I hope you are talking about yourself :) Because I doubt that anyone else, especially game developer, have similar perception of golems as I do.

It needs to be reviewed by other devs for balance. I'm far from a balance expert. I'd be happy to code it, but I can't tell when I'll find the time to do so.

Curio wrote:
galehar wrote:By the way, for pretty cool golems (and fun story), I recommend Terry Pratchett's Going Postal.

Hah! Read it along with whole Pratchett's Disc world series long time ago. Big fan of him. Actually, scroll-in-a-head idea was inspired pretty much by him, and also whole concept is heavily influenced by DW's golems.

I haven't read it. I was talking about the TV adaptation made last year, it's really nice.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 16:01

Re: New Race: Golem

I only read Making Money, the followup to Going Postal. That one was not one of TP's best IMO (despite some really cool characters), but also prominently featured golems. Maybe I should read Going Postal or watch the movie.

On topic: Curio, you already did most of the work for adding this to the wiki when you updated the first post in this thread. It has all the relevant features and flavor in it, and in my opinion is pretty detailed and concise. Just think everything through once more, check if you missed something and add the alternative features, and probably a link to this thread. Maybe also a list of potential gameplay problems and things that still need work, like words for the satiation state (hungry etc.).
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 16:07

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:It needs to be reviewed by other devs for balance. I'm far from a balance expert. I'd be happy to code it, but I can't tell when I'll find the time to do so.

I see. Well, I hope idea will not die and wither away in two weeks from now, since I will not be able to comment then.
galehar wrote:I haven't read it. I was talking about the TV adaptation made last year, it's really nice.

What?! It already out? I'll wait with wikification a bit, then. Have something important to do :roll:

Galefury wrote:I only read Making Money, the followup to Going Postal. That one was not one of TP's best IMO (despite some really cool characters), but also prominently featured golems. Maybe I should read Going Postal or watch the movie.

There is much more golems in Going Postal, [spoiler]actually the whole army of them[/spoiler]. There is also "Feet of Clay" where main plot revolves around crazy golem. Books always better than movies.
Galefury wrote:On topic: Curio, you already did most of the work for adding this to the wiki when you updated the first post in this thread. It has all the relevant features and flavor in it, and in my opinion is pretty detailed and concise. Just think everything through once more, check if you missed something and add the alternative features, and probably a link to this thread. Maybe also a list of potential gameplay problems and things that still need work, like words for the satiation state (hungry etc.).

Thanks for advice. But I meant it's hard to categorize in the wiki because of a technical aspect. But I will figure it out anyway - there's a manual somewhere.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 20:58

Re: New Race: Golem

Here is the wiki page on golems. Creating pages can be tricky (and sections even more), but editing pages is easy. This one is already created, so you're in luck. It also has a few ideas, maybe you can find some which you like.

We still have to figure out if we want to give them extra penalty with magic. We haven't discussed stats yet, but they probably have ones similar to Trolls: high str, medium dex and low int. So if they already have low int and bad apts, do we want to go further? Maybe it's not needed, I can't tell. If we want to, here are a few ways to do it:

  • put the spell level cap at XL/3 instead of XL.
  • give them a similar penalty to spell slots (/3)
  • about MP, instead of lowering the amount of MP we can increase the cost of casting.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 21:25

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:Here is the wiki page on golems. Creating pages can be tricky (and sections even more), but editing pages is easy. This one is already created, so you're in luck. It also has a few ideas, maybe you can find some which you like.

Yeah, I know. Some of the ideas for my concept were already borrowed from there. I was actually saying about editing thing, but I guess it's not that hard after all. Just want it to be simple yet informative.

galehar wrote:We still have to figure out if we want to give them extra penalty with magic. We haven't discussed stats yet, but they probably have ones similar to Trolls: high str, medium dex and low int. So if they already have low int and bad apts, do we want to go further?

Even though it duplicates troll stats I don't see any other option - seems natural for golems too.

galehar wrote:Maybe it's not needed, I can't tell. If we want to, here are a few ways to do it:
  • put the spell level cap at XL/3 instead of XL.
  • give them a similar penalty to spell slots (/3)
  • about MP, instead of lowering the amount of MP we can increase the cost of casting.

Let's try not to overkill it. I vote only for bad aptitudes (as of now) and increase the cost of casting (this will eliminate exploit probability with high mana from invocations). Spell level cap an spell slot penalty can be added later if those two are not enough.

Also, while we on topic, what about MR? It seems very fitting for a golem but will be too much because of a lack of drawbacks. No natural hp regen was shuffled after all, so there's only slowness, no potions, bad exp gain and bad magic left.
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Post Sunday, 22nd May 2011, 20:08

Re: New Race: Golem

Done wikifying.

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Post Monday, 23rd May 2011, 02:47

Re: New Race: Golem

I've been lurking the forum for a bit, but I do want to say that I'm looking forward to playing a Golem. Perhaps congratulations are a bit premature, but they are nevertheless deserved for your part. Nice Job, Curio.
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Post Monday, 23rd May 2011, 08:14

Re: New Race: Golem

dolphin wrote:I've been lurking the forum for a bit, but I do want to say that I'm looking forward to playing a Golem. Perhaps congratulations are a bit premature, but they are nevertheless deserved for your part. Nice Job, Curio.

Thanks. There is still much balancing need to be done.
And I almost forgot that we need description of golem's actions ("eating","resting", praying etc.) in flavor-wise manner.
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Post Monday, 13th June 2011, 11:48

Re: New Race: Golem

tournament is over. Meanwhile, octopodes slither their way into a game. I wonder is there a place left for more canon race. For example, Golems ;)
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Post Monday, 13th June 2011, 12:21

Re: New Race: Golem

Eronarn didn't simply suggested Octopodes. He actually coded them and they have been playtested and polished in their own branch for quite a while.
I like your golem idea Curio, and I have defended it and helped you flesh it out. But currently, it's not my priority to code it. New training system is (no victory dancing). I'm already struggling to do that in time for 0.9. Once it's done and 0.9 is out, I'll present your idea to the other devs and if it's accepted, I'll code it. So your best hope is 0.10 (january 2012).
Don't worry, even if there's no talk about it anymore, I haven't forgotten :)
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Post Monday, 13th June 2011, 18:31

Re: New Race: Golem

I don't attacking squids in any way. I am very eager to try them as well. Too bad that i am complete 0 in coding and tiles is the most i can provide beside idea for golem.
I understand your priorities and since you reassured me I will not bother anyone with golems until time will come :)

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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 16:36

Re: New Race: Golem

Hi there, first post and all that.

So... since the past week I've had some spare time to waste and to make long story short, I just finished coding an implementation for this. I'm currently cleaning a few interface kinks, but the patch should be on the Mantis tracker before the end of the day, if anyone is interested.

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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 17:05

Re: New Race: Golem

Welcome to the Tavern!

Very nice intro post.
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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 17:19

Re: New Race: Golem

hi!
You mean you made a patch of a whole race? 0_0
if so, how much does it look like my design?

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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 17:37

Re: New Race: Golem

The golem wiki page now has four proposals. I believe a conglomerate will work best, this is why I added TwilightPhoenix' version, as I think eating stones is better than eating magical items.

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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 17:42

Re: New Race: Golem

I aimed to make it as close as possible to the design posted on the wiki. Of course, I had to fill a few gaps, like the nutrition values for items, the bonuses gained on lvl up (currently they stand at 10 MR, 1/5 AC, and 1/4 STR) and many flavour messages (for those I blatantly stole some ideas from the other golem threads). I also added a few tweaks that made sense to me, namely being immune to bleeding and poison and the inability to learn/being affected by sublimation of blood, vampiric drain, revivification and stuff like that.
I could swear there's some other things that I don't remember right now but they are pretty minor.

I also made a few changes to make sure that all Runed/Glowing/??? things are actually interesting, but that introduced a few glitches on the whole description system that I'm currently trying to fix.

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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 17:49

Re: New Race: Golem

dpeg wrote:The golem wiki page now has four proposals. I believe a conglomerate will work best, this is why I added TwilightPhoenix' version, as I think eating stones is better than eating magical items.


Eating stones was easier but way less fun to implement. Also, I wanted to give item draining a try before discarding the idea.

(Edit)
Anyway, here it is if you want to give it a try: https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=4400
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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 18:01

Re: New Race: Golem

i'm speechless. All fixes you described is very logical. Most necro spells will not have effect at all (death door) and poison immunity was mentioned with all the other resists. (is there a bleed effect in crawl?)
about eating. If item consumption will not suffice i'm all for making golems hungerless(and nerf magic usage some more). Eating stones is not much greater idea than eating magic stuff.
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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 19:07

Re: New Race: Golem

I like this, but several of the numbered points appear to duplicate Deep Dwarf.

EDIT: this response was posted in response to the bottom of the first page; did not realize 2 pages followed.
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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 19:18

Re: New Race: Golem

several? I only see hp regen *similarity*. Golem at least can restore health when satiated and above.
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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 19:29

Re: New Race: Golem

As noted, that was a response to page 1, not page 3.

Now I've read the thread an I want to toss an idea into the mix, even though it could be discarded.

And yes, I understand it's coded and on it's way, so the sooner I get this info out, the better I'll feel.

In the generic fantasy concept, golems are creatures created through wizardly magic.
Historically, golems are created through religious magic.

My suggestion is that golems are powered by piety.

When the game starts, the golem player gets to select a god. Any viable god from the list. The god selected cannot be changed.

Piety from the god not only gives god effects, but also enhances the nature and abilities of the golem.
The golem can expend piety for special abilities.
As it levels, the golem gains selected-god-specific "mutations"; Fedhas might transform the golem to wood, Okawaru to steel.

My idea is not well thought out and is rushed, but I did not see something like this mentioned, and it might be a bear to figure out the specifics.
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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 19:40

Re: New Race: Golem

your idea is prone to combinatory explosion. Also, too much hassle to implement code-wise. Just imagine -for every new god there must be made additionaly at least one mechanic specifically for only one race? ItS not worth it, i think.

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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 19:44

Re: New Race: Golem

I have a concern about restoring health from rocks only. While stones are fairly common, they are not *that* common. I would think that a couple of fiends with helfire could easily remove your entire stockpile. Plus if it is rock, why cannot they use LRD (or simply thier fists) to remove a snack from any convenient wall. I cannot picture the stones that you find on the floor as any more special than what you can knock from a wall.

Given that there really should not be a limit on the supply of stone (you are in a dungon after all), I really think removing the magic from items makes more sense as a limited, but dependable food supply/healing source.

TLDR: +1 for draining items for food
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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 19:57

Re: New Race: Golem

thanks. My whole motivation for item consumption was not because of flavor(hungerless is better here), but because i wanted to see how it would be that , otherwise useless items, would be made crucial for golem survival.

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Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 21:33

Re: New Race: Golem

I don't have much of an opinion on what's best in terms of general golem mechanics yet, but having briefly taken a look into the patch and played a bit, I don't see much appeal in a slow-moving, slow-healing race with abysmal spellcasting apts that has extra difficulties healing on top of that due to lack of potions - it seems like it's really weak and more importantly, hugely restricted in terms of actual viable builds. The idea of high strength, medium intelligence, and average/below-average spellcasting apts looks much more interesting to me, and might combine better with the slow movement/limited healing as a downside and the good armour/fighting apts and innate resistances as an upside? Hopefully the fact that there's some interest from a patcher means that the concept can be refined and made fun, though!

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Post Friday, 19th August 2011, 18:24

Re: New Race: Golem

Update on the status of things:

From what I've tested so far, the current Golem is all kinds of crippled on the early game. The mix of slow movement, slow regen, no potions, bad magic, bad stealth, and bad ranged aptitudes don't leave a lot of options open and the Golem is outclassed by pretty much everyone in the few things that it can actually do. At the very least, it needs some way to deal with plain old combat damage or tone down on the handicaps. (In its current incarnation is awfully similar to a mummy with additional drawbacks and no hungerless casting to compensate).

In the meanwhile, I'll work on an implementation for TwilightPhoenix version of the Golem so we can test them side by side and see what works.

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Post Friday, 19th August 2011, 21:07

Re: New Race: Golem

I haven't read again the thread but if they're gonna be slow, shouldn't they get a very large AC boost? There is no 'tank' species that I know of (except for armoured MDFi, but most races can reach a tank status when playing with heavy armour)
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Post Saturday, 20th August 2011, 02:25

Re: New Race: Golem

Nagas can be a pretty effective late-game caster/tank, provided they find a near-mythical naga barding. (Innate AC) - (1/2 base armour AC) + (armour pluses) + (Armour skill bonuses) ~ 35-45 AC, and they can can do shields easily as a large species, so 40-50 SH as well for a large shield, all while maintaining good casting ability.
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Post Monday, 5th September 2011, 17:46

Re: New Race: Golem

I like the idea of playable golems, but I must admit I don't like the idea of golems that heal themselves and cast spells. I propose that, instead of healing, a golem starts with a staggeringly large number of hitpoints, but that's all you get.

A golem is basically a moving chunk of rock, right? And that rock gets more and more eroded over time. Rocks don't "heal." Rocks last a long, long time, but when they're gone, they're gone.

When a golem levels up, it could either have its current hitpoints multiplied by a given factor, say 1.3, or have a set amount added each level, or even the larger of the two. This reflects the golem learning to take blows less directly, turning aside, partially deflecting them, etc. But no actual healing is possible. This means for golems there is no current-over-maximum HP -- there is just HP.

--
Second suggestion: Since clay becomes harder when it's fired, getting hit by fire could actually grant a temporary AC gain, say +5 or +30%, whichever is greater.

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 18:59

Re: New Race: Golem

It doesn't make sense to me to have 0 aptitude for fighting and shields. I think shields should get a bonus. It seems that they would be naturally inclined to grabbing a slab of metal and blocking things with it.

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 19:28

Re: New Race: Golem

Golems are a cool idea Curio, here is a quick suggestion. I skimmed through all the posts so if someone posted something similar and I missed it sorry! How about giving golems a large mana pool and make their HP regen directly related to how much mana they have. If they have half mana then their regen will be half as fast as it would be with full mana. Now here is the catch, their mana slowly drains as they adventure, and to refill their mana they need to consume the magic stuff. If they ever get to 0 mana they have no HP regen at all. As to the magic thing, maybe give them an ability to break down magic items to its essence. This essence would be a stackable item they consume to increase magic power. Low level items give 1 essence while higher level items give more. Any attack that drains HP drains their magic pool first. Like food the essence would fade away after awhile if not consumed. Anyways golems sound neat, look forward to reading more on them.

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 09:39

Re: New Race: Golem

Perhaps just combine the heal/ac bonus/resist package/consume mechanics?

In short your resistances, your AC, and perhaps even your HP can be related to what pieces you find and eat? So devour a wand of cold, gain RC temporarily. Near higher levels the consume could become great granting you more RC for longer durations, or possibly a permanent boost for some downside. This could work with upping AC as well, and instead of wearing all armor you can absorb it for bonuses.

Could be too obnoxious or get complicated easy, or just be too far from what you want, but might be worth some thought.

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Post Saturday, 24th September 2011, 20:12

Re: New Race: Golem

To be honest, as interesting a concept as playable golems is thematically, I just cannot get excited about the prospect of yet another large, beefy, strong, equipment-restricted race with lousy magic. We already have ogres and trolls for that. Yeah, golems would have immunity to pain, torment, and mutation whereas the other large races wouldn't, but those attributes are mostly only valuable in the very late and post-game, where a slow, potionless, magicless golem would have almost no chance to survive anyway. Assuming they even managed to reach the temple with their slow movement and total lack of escape mechanisms. I just don't see any sensible reason why anyone would play a golem over a troll, naga, or mummy with those aptitudes.

A lot of people are assuming automatically that golems should suck at magic because they're inorganic or dumb, but I don't think that has to be the case. Magical energies flow through every part of their body, so they have a magical essence. They have a natural ability to understand and follow written instructions (at least in some stories), so reading a spellbook is no problem even if they aren't otherwise educated. Why not have them be good spellcasters? Balance is an issue, but since their odd nutrition mechanic is already probably the most interesting thing about them, it could be balanced by a fear of spell hunger. Kind of like spriggans, but the complete opposite in every other respect.

Here's my crazy idea. Give golems above average overall magic skills, maybe even an innate wizardry bonus of some kind, but have them not use the standard spell hunger formula. Instead, every point of mana they regenerate deducts a flat, non-trivial amount of nutrition which is completely unmitigated by anything, ever. The magic power that they're carelessly expending on these spells is their very essence, after all. Golems would be both allowed and encouraged to develop as hybrids, using magic to give them the edge in situations which would otherwise be hopeless due to their speed, but they're forced to use their spells very sparingly out of a constant fear of starvation. A golem conjurer who plays like an elf would burn out by D2, and unlike spriggans, they're never really "over the hump" as far as starvation fears go. The main downside is that it would make it that much harder to balance the amount of nutrition gained by each item, which was already probably going to be tricky.

EDIT: Maybe rather than healing from draining wand charges, golems could gain a big chunk of mana instead, capable of exceeding their maximum. Mana over their normal cap dissipates faster than it can be metabolized, but they gain a bunch of speed (enough swiftness to slightly exceed normal human movement speed, but considerably less, if any, true haste/finesse/action speed/whatever) and regeneration as long as they have some extra, or they can spend that bonus mana right away on spells without suffering the usual hunger cost for having to regenerate their own mana. That would help regulate nutrition flow between magical and non-magical golems a little better, as well as bring back the original idea of sped-up overcharged golems without clumsily trying it to tie it to satiation.

Alternate, much dumber idea: golems start the game with something like 200 unmodifiable maximum mana and it serves as their nutrition and magic pool simultaneously. Mostly just because it would be hilarious to stuff yourself in the Hall of Blades and then raze the entirety of Vaults 8 to the ground within like hundred uninterrupted rounds of terrible magical fury.
Last edited by Sjohara on Saturday, 24th September 2011, 21:42, edited 2 times in total.
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Post Saturday, 24th September 2011, 21:28

Re: New Race: Golem

Sjohara wrote:Here's my crazy idea. Give golems above average overall magic skills, maybe even an innate wizardry bonus of some kind, but have them not use the standard spell hunger formula. Instead, every point of mana they regenerate deducts a flat, non-trivial amount of nutrition which is completely unmitigated by anything, ever.

Now, that's a fresh and interesting idea. Maybe we can keep the normal spell hunger too, you pay both when casting and when regenerating. They have easier access to high level spells, but must use them sparingly.
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Blades Runner

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Post Saturday, 24th September 2011, 21:54

Re: New Race: Golem

From feedback I'm getting I might only comment on few things:

+Golems should gain MR with leveling up. With almost near immunity at 27XL. This should help against confusing effects (which are devastating due to lack of healing pots)

+Casting abilities is a MUST. But they should be balanced in a way that only hybrids are playable decently enough.
I like Sjohara's idea about set nutrition cost for spells too.
Also, proposed earlier idea about fewer spell slots still stands. Even with awesome aptitudes golems will choose to learn some utility spells instead of bolt of foo.

+(Optional) Lessen armor slot restrictions? With great skills and gear they might become the most armored class in a game.

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Post Saturday, 24th September 2011, 22:19

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:+Casting abilities is a MUST. But they should be balanced in a way that only hybrids are playable decently enough.
I like Sjohara's idea about set nutrition cost for spells too.
Also, proposed earlier idea about fewer spell slots still stands. Even with awesome aptitudes golems will choose to learn some utility spells instead of bolt of foo.

I don't think incredibly lousy aptitudes captures the "hybrid is fine, but no pure casters" idea very well. In the early game, reaching a point where your utility spells are even remotely castable requires a HUGE investment in experience which most golems won't be able to manage before they die horribly. And in the very late game, when you do have enough experience to have a shot at casting the best spells hungerless even through abysmal aptitudes, you hit a new issue. Some of the best hybrid spells, like semi-controlled Blink or Haste, are kept in check mainly by glow. Golems are 100% immune to the effects of glow, since neither mutation nor rotting affects them. So that would be bad.

Letting golems cast spells easily, but preventing them from casting them often, would regulate their use and force a hybrid playstyle much more cleanly and effectively. Relying on hunger for this should work if the nutrition gained from items is tuned finely enough. Nutrition will probably an inherently less common (and especially less transportable) resource for golems than other races, so hitting them there should hurt them badly enough to make them really think about what they should be spending their energy on. And if the cost can't be mitigated, than the hit from casting stuff like Haste will stay meaningful all game long.

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Post Saturday, 24th September 2011, 22:28

Re: New Race: Golem

I've been wanting to cast spells in GDR for a while. If Golems could pull this off (casting unaffected by heavy armour) I'd be tickled. This would be very fun. And I think it could be balanced, once the unique nutrition and casting stuff is put in.
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Post Sunday, 25th September 2011, 08:37

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:From feedback I'm getting I might only comment on few things:

+Golems should gain MR with leveling up. With almost near immunity at 27XL. This should help against confusing effects (which are devastating due to lack of healing pots)

+Casting abilities is a MUST. But they should be balanced in a way that only hybrids are playable decently enough.
I like Sjohara's idea about set nutrition cost for spells too.
Also, proposed earlier idea about fewer spell slots still stands. Even with awesome aptitudes golems will choose to learn some utility spells instead of bolt of foo.

+(Optional) Lessen armor slot restrictions? With great skills and gear they might become the most armored class in a game.

MR with XL sounds good to me. Instead of a special rule for reduced spell slots, just give them bad spellcasting apt, and good magical school apts (opposite to Ogres). If the nutrition cost of casting is high enough, they'll have to be hybrids. Restricted armour slots might not be necessary and has been done over and over, we can try without.

Sjohara wrote:Golems are 100% immune to the effects of glow, since neither mutation nor rotting affects them. So that would be bad.

Golems are powered by magic, so magical contamination should disrupt them in various ways. We'll have to come up with unique effects for them.

smock wrote:I've been wanting to cast spells in GDR for a while. If Golems could pull this off (casting unaffected by heavy armour) I'd be tickled.

I don't think so. If armour doesn't have any drawback anymore, then there's no reason not to wear one. So this would remove an interesting choice.
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Post Sunday, 25th September 2011, 19:22

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:
smock wrote:I've been wanting to cast spells in GDR for a while. If Golems could pull this off (casting unaffected by heavy armour) I'd be tickled.

I don't think so. If armour doesn't have any drawback anymore, then there's no reason not to wear one. So this would remove an interesting choice.


Nagas, the other slow race, have big AC/shield/HP buffs and a breath weapon. It sounds like Golems will need one or more rather flashy things, especially in the early game.

At present the choice of what armour to wear isn't so interesting in the early game. It's mostly a choice between leather and robe. Most types of heavy armour are simply out of the question. And, for casters, dragon armours don't come early enough.

Maybe something like -2 to the evasion penalty (so ring mail would be like a robe) or a halving, rounded down, of the penalty (so chain would be like ring mail). An adjustment to the evasion penalty would let them use scale or chain mail and still cast spells, so it might help in the early game.

It might make the armour decision more interesting, too.
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Post Monday, 26th September 2011, 15:43

Re: New Race: Golem

Sjohara wrote:I don't think incredibly lousy aptitudes captures the "hybrid is fine, but no pure casters" idea very well.


Sorry, I did not elaborate enough. By "casting abilities is a must" I meant that abysmal aptitudes should go and another limiting mechanic should be put in it's place for golems (i.e. less spell slots, less MP gains from skills/XL). Or your idea with nutrition. But it is harder to balance than just cutting slots or mana.

galehar wrote:MR with XL sounds good to me. Instead of a special rule for reduced spell slots, just give them bad spellcasting apt, and good magical school apts (opposite to Ogres).

I think Ogre-reverse magic aptitude is cool but it could be not enough to handicap golem-casters. Something else from above-mentioned should be used on top of it, in my opinion.

galehar wrote:Restricted armour slots might not be necessary and has been done over and over, we can try without.

Yup, maybe. We should loose up some of non-magic related handicaps of golems because from feedback i'm getting they are not worth it in early game.
About boots slot though - if golem finds boots of running it virtually eliminates it's main Con. Nagas don't have this problem. Is it fine for golems to have this luxury?

Come to think of it, when desighning golems I was so afraid they will be owerpowered that the ended up being underpowered. So, providing all slots, giving some magic and awesome MR is a least that they deserve.
I'm thinking about beefing up their starting natural AC (=easier early game, where it matters most due to low speed. AC loses it's shine later if not gained exponentially) and/or overall HP.

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Post Monday, 26th September 2011, 16:22

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:Golems are powered by magic, so magical contamination should disrupt them in various ways. We'll have to come up with unique effects for them.


Ideas: Slower MP regeneration (coming to a standstill when contamination gets high enough.) Spellcasting penalties. Harder to use scrolls (like blurry vision, but the magical contamination screws with their ability to generate magical effects). Miscast effects even without casting, with probabilities based on the relative skills in each spell school, as the innate magical skill within the golem goes nuts.
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Post Monday, 26th September 2011, 18:48

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:
galehar wrote:Restricted armour slots might not be necessary and has been done over and over, we can try without.

Yup, maybe. We should loose up some of non-magic related handicaps of golems because from feedback i'm getting they are not worth it in early game.
About boots slot though - if golem finds boots of running it virtually eliminates it's main Con. Nagas don't have this problem. Is it fine for golems to have this luxury?

They have artefact barding of speedy slithering now :)
I really don't know if it can be a balance problem, it's too early to tell. What I like about Sjohara's idea it's that it has potential for a really different gameplay. And with all the races we already have, differentiation is an important criteria. Golem already has many similarities with mummy with the resistances, but tying magic to nutrition and giving them good apts make them completely opposite to mummy for magic. That's why I think it's very good.
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Post Monday, 26th September 2011, 19:04

Re: New Race: Golem

Whoah! Speedy slithering is something new for sure. =)

On topic: Making golems stand out is tricky. Very controversial ideas (like original one with scrolls) are too complex to be implemented. On the other hand, very subtle one are overshadowed by similarities with other species. (mummy resists, DD healing, Naga slowness)

So, What about at least giving them 3-5 innate AC right from the start? It will help them in early game a lot.

Also, someone mentioned that slow healing are annoying on them on top of slow movement. I don't really know how to revamp nutrition gain/healing thing to be more unique.
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Post Monday, 26th September 2011, 22:59

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:I don't really know how to revamp nutrition gain/healing thing to be more unique.

Well, there's this idea of having MP regen cost nutrition... It can be a strong balancing lever!
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Post Tuesday, 27th September 2011, 10:19

Re: New Race: Golem

Just occurred to me. If golems will have set nutrition cost for all spells and bad aptitude for Spellcasting, they will have near to no reason to train it at all(only spellpower gain and few extra mp).

How is item consumption system works right now? Maybe someone can upload compiled Crawl with golems in it? Because I don't know what I will be talking about in nutrition department without trying it in-game first.
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Post Tuesday, 27th September 2011, 10:44

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:Just occurred to me. If golems will have set nutrition cost for all spells and bad aptitude for Spellcasting, they will have near to no reason to train it at all(only spellpower gain and few extra mp).

No set nutrition cost. Normal cost (which can be reduced with spellcasting) and additional cost when regenerating MP. Since they can't spam spells too much, they have no use for high MP. More slots is always nice but expensive for them which is the intended effect.

Curio wrote:How is item consumption system works right now? Maybe someone can upload compiled Crawl with golems in it? Because I don't know what I will be talking about in nutrition department without trying it in-game first.

I'll try to use the patch to create a golem branch, so it's easier to test it without putting too much stress for fixing all the bugs it might introduce.
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