Would anyone play as a Fire Bat?

[bcadren]

Primarily a challenge race; but it has it's strengths; unlike permanently turning into a Vampire Bat as a Vp.

Weirdness/Mutations:

• Minimum move speed (faster than Spriggans; tied with Bat Form Vp).
• Felid-level Equipment restrictions (Jewelry Only).
• Perma-Flight (impossible to stop flying)
• Auxiliaries: Talons (Flaming), Bite (Flaming)
• Main UC attack is weaker than a normal character. Using UC/2 for base dam instead of full UC Skill. Still Flaming. Blade Hands negates this (and keeps the flaming).
• Immune to fire. (∞)
• Weak to Ice. (-)
• Two natural Fire Enhancers (Start, XL 12).
• You are bright. (Corona effect reduces dodge and stealth slightly).

Stats:

• 4 STR
• 10 INT
• 10 DEX
• +1 INT/DEX every 4th level.

Apts:

  Code:

Fb: Fighting: -3*, Dodge: 5!, Stealth: 2, UC: 1!, Splcast: -3, Conj: -1, Hexes: 1, Charms: 1, Summ: 0, Nec: 1, Tloc: 1, Tmut: -3, Fire: 3!, Ice: -2, Air: 2, Earth: -2, Poison: -1, Inv: 2, Evo: 1, Exp: 1!, HP: -4*, MP: 3!

[Hirsch I]

does not really sound more fun than Felids, and Felids are not exactly funnier than a shot to the balls.

[Sar]

Need a light?

[tasonir]

Seems overall pretty similiar to felid, although with nerfed UC (I assume flaming isn't going to be enough to make up for UC/2, although flaming talons might). I'm not sure felids + fire is enough to make this worth adding. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but vampire in bat form is 6 aut movement speed, and spriggans are 6 aut movement speed, so there's no way this race can be the same as a bat and faster than a spriggan. 6 aut move is probably what you're looking for.

[Magipi]

I'm not sure felids + fire is enough to make this worth adding.

You are not sure? You must be fucking kidding. Yeah, Crawl really needs another unplayable bloody awful species, as if 4 is not enough.

[tasonir]

I try to be tactful

What four races do you consider unplayable? Obviously felid is one, but I'm not sure what the other 3 you think are. I'd consider mummies to be one of the more terrible races to play, but I know several people really rather like them - sandman, duvessa, probably others. I actually like felids a fair amount too. The -40% hp means it's really hard to autopilot the character, which I understand is frustrating, but if you plan some way to deal with it (berserk or statue form are popular, guardian spirit if you find it) it can make for fairly unique builds.

I imagine there isn't much agreement on what are the four worst races are - for example, my three are kobold/high elf/vampire from when that removal thread came up. I'd remove all of those before considering felid, and I'd much rather keep felid. I wouldn't mind if felid went to -30% hp, but hey. They are clearly winnable with -40%, even if it's frustrating.

I have a surprisingly deep hatred of high elves, by the way.

[Magipi]

Nagas are not in the 4, don't worry

Just to be clear: I'm talking about power level, while you are probably not. In this respect, the bottom 4 are Fe, Fo, Mu, Op in alphabetical order. Op are like felids only worse, and formicids are really terrible because they can't haste. All other are much-much better than these 4 in my (limited) experience.

[xentronium]

Nagas are not in the 4, don't worry

Just to be clear: I'm talking about power level, while you are probably not. In this respect, the bottom 4 are Fe, Fo, Mu, Op in alphabetical order. Op are like felids only worse, and formicids are really terrible because they can't haste. All other are much-much better than these 4 in my (limited) experience.

I actually enjoy playing Fo a lot because it allows me to use axes (which I like) and shields (which I like) on the same character.

[tasonir]

I should probably play some more Fo's, I won one for great player and haven't picked them up again since. In power level I'd agree Fe Fo Mu are all hard, and Op may start out hard, but it seems really hard to lump them into one category when they're rather different from each other.

If we use mummies as the standard 100 difficulty, then felids are probably no more than 50, formicids around 60, and OP are about 30 once you clear to lair. All races get easier after lair of course, but octopodes especially so, since you now probably have rings to start getting your racial benefits. They're maybe a 40-45 from the start. Most other races are somewhere around 10 or 20 on this scale. I guess my point is it's hard for me to consider Op anywhere near Mu when they're ~3 times easier, in my opinion. If you get statue form online, Op completely flips down to around 10-15, becoming one of the stronger races in the game. Most races don't have as radical of a growth from terrible to great, even though all characters get stronger as the game continues.

Maybe the only real point here is "it's hard to compare anything to how badly mummies suck"

[Kismet]

I try to be tactful
I'd consider mummies to be one of the more terrible races to play, but I know several people really rather like them -

Do people like mummies or just like not dealing with hunger?

[Sar]

Mu is a fun challenge.

[Berder]

A proper fire bat player race should be forced to move like a bat. Super-fast, but every turn you randomly move a few squares in random directions.