Race suggestion: Goblin


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Shoals Surfer

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Post Friday, 16th February 2018, 22:40

Race suggestion: Goblin

A few notes about the idea in advance:

  • To answer the questions of "why do we need this"/"what new things does this bring to the table": I wanted to create an idea for a race that is small, but not particularly suited to a stealthy playstyle. I also wanted to think about how a race that can't use scrolls could work. From the synthesis of these two concepts, I came up with the Goblin.
  • The idea was partially inspired by Blood Bowl Goblins, who are neither strong nor particularly agile, but compensate for that by cheating shamelessly at every opportunity.
  • I wanted Goblins to be a potentially challenging race, but not a "challenge race" necessarily, i.e. not something that's meant to be clearly inferior to the "normal" options. This is the first iteration of the idea and since it's not been put into practice, I'm not sure how exactly the balance of this would pan out.

Goblins are a small humanoid race, looked down upon and reviled by a great many of the intelligent races for their noisy, violent demeanor and perceived lack of intellect. Unlike other smaller races such as kobolds and spriggans, goblins have no particular innate affinity for stealth, due to their lack of patience and internal discipline. They have an animistic set of beliefs, consulting a number of different spirits for guidance and strength, using no magic aside from their tribal shamanistic rituals - thus they have very little talent for the arcane (aside from Summoning and Necromancy, which resemble some of their rituals and are thus easier for them to learn).

The saving grace of the goblins is their mastery of a dirty, dishonorable style of combat that somewhat makes up for their lack of physical strength. Goblins can master any type of combat and routinely employ crippling, underhanded moves that focus on disabling their enemies. This allows them to stand a chance in a fight against opponents greater than themselves, at least until they find an opportunity to flee, provided they have somehow developed enough fighting skill.

Though their shamanism leaves them inexperienced in traditional magic, their knowledge of shaman stones, sacred totems and similar items gives them a talent for evocable items and an excellent ability to communicate with supernatural forces - the traditional pantheon and their animistic spirits alike. Goblin tribes do not learn to read, and thus a goblin cannot use magical scrolls at all - though they can still call upon spirits of wisdom to help them absorb the magical knowledge hidden in a spellbook, if they so wish.

Goblin adventurers always wear sacred talismans bequeathed upon them by their shamans. With the help of these talismans, a goblin can commune with the spirit of any unknown item they encounter in the dungeons, automatically identifying them. These talismans also convey rudimentary warding from curses and maledictions. Thus, goblins have no need for scrolls of identify or remove curse, and can freely swap even permanently cursed items - but the talismans leave them no space to wear magical amulets.


Aptitudes:

Arm -1, Ddg 3, Sth -1, Shd -1, Inv +2, Evo +2

HP -10%, MP -1, Exp +1, MR +5

Fgt 0, all weapon apts 0, Thr -1, Slg 0, Bws -3, Crb -3, Spc -1, Sum -1, Nec -1, all other spell schools -3

Attributes: Str 4, Int 4, Dex 10 (before background modifiers)
Gain: 1 Str/Dex every 4 levels

Gimmicks:

Dirty fighting: Whenever you fight in melee, you have a chance to inflict negative status effects on enemies via special moves. The chance is dependent on weapon skill (proposed chance = S/27*C, where S is the current skill level of the weapon you are using, and C is an arbitrarily defined constant based on what would be balanced - around C=0.5 sounds good to me for a start). Each attack has a chance of triggering one of these special effects, regardless of whether the attack hits or misses (of course, effects are only applied if it hits), ignoring enemy MR. There is one weapon-specific move available for each weapon class, depending on what the goblin is wielding at the moment. For example:

Blinding attack: inflicts blindness for 3-4 turns. "You strike at the [enemy's] organ of sight, momentarily blinding [them]!"
Hobble: inflicts Slow for 8-10 turns. "You hobble the [enemy] with a well-placed disabling strike!"
Weak Point: inflicts double damage, dazes enemy for one turn. "You manage to strike at a particularly vulnerable spot of the [enemy]!!!!"
Painful strike: halves current enemy HP (like the Agony/Torment effect, except not rN/MR-based). Normal weapon damage will be dealt if that is higher. "You deal a particularly vicious strike to the [enemy], making it hurt as best you can!!!!!!
Bleeding wound: inflicts a 'bleeding' status effect on the enemy - for the sake of simplicity, this works against everything, with the understanding that certain creatures leak things other than blood. (Works with M&F/staves too just for the sake of simplicity. Maybe it's the spikes on your eveningstar, or maybe you just scrape your staff really roughly at a sensitive spot. Enemy bleeds for random amount between, let's say, 25-50% of their maximum HP over the course of several turns.) "You slash open the [enemy]!!"
Disarming strike: conveys 'weak' modifier upon the enemy for 8-10 turns, decreasing the physical damage they deal to you. "You mangle the fighting limb of the [enemy]!!!"

Weapon-specific:

SBl: Shank - inflicts 'stab damage', as if the enemy was paralyzed, regardless of awareness status (the amount of damage you deal is calculated as with regular stabs, taking weapon skill and Stealth into account and all that). Only works if the current enemy is the only hostile, aware creature next to you. "You slice open the [enemy] in an opportune moment with your blade!!!!!"
LBl: Sever Limb - permanently inflicts Slow or Weak and a bleeding wound. "You cripple the [enemy] with a well-placed swing!!"
Axe: Whirlwind Strike - hits all neighbors for full damage, shoves them back up to 2-3 squares away from you (not necessarily in a straight line). This can send them careening into water or lava. Only triggers if you are fighting multiple enemies at once. "You spin around like a maniac and send your enemies reeling!"
Mace: Stunning Blow - makes enemy dazed for a few turns, aka short term confuse (90% chance) or paralyzed (10% chance). "You scramble the [enemy]'s mind with a stunning blow from your weapon!!!"
Polearm: Impale - only occurs on reach attacks. Inflicts bleeding, halves enemy HP and prevents the enemy from doing anything until the next action you take. "You skewer the [enemy] real good with your polearm!!!!!"
Staff: Pole Vault Strike - attacks the enemy for normal damage, leaving them dazed for 2-3 turns and allowing you to then controlled-blink away to any empty square in a range of 3 squares. You can stay put if you wish to, of course. "You pole-vault at the [enemy] and smack [them], then bounce away! Choose where to bounce..."
Unarmed: Strangle - Instantly executes the opponent. Only triggers if the enemy is is slower than you, as this is basically you lunging for their throat before they can react. Does not work against anything with the rConstr resistance. "You lunge at the [enemy] and choke the very essence out of it!!!!!"

None of these effects trigger on ripostes. They only trigger in goblin form (nothing that transmutes you into something different, with the possible exception of statue form). Each effect has an equal chance of triggering, except the weapon-specific effect, which has a halved chance. For reference, goblins can have the current list of moves available to them (and the current chance to trigger a move upon hitting) listed in a way accessible from the mutation screen, just like vampires have their satiation levels with their respective effects listed.

With C=0.5, there is a ~12.5% chance of something happening every hit with weapon skill 6.2, a 25% chance of something happening with weapon skill 13.5 and a 50% chance of something happening with weapon skill 27. At the highest weapon skill level, you have a ~3.85% chance of you triggering your weapon-specific move on a hit, and a ~7.7% chance of any individual non-weapon-specific move, if I calculated correctly. It scales down linearly from there. Does that sound about right? Sounds right to me, although we can increase the chances to up to double of that if the race is otherwise deemed too weak.

No scroll reading: Goblins cannot read scrolls. (They can "read" spellbooks just fine though, for reasons explained in the lore.)

Instead, they have a number of mechanics to replace scroll functions. Goblins can call upon their spirits to escape for 2 MP with an ability. ("You call upon the spirits to aid you in your predicament!") The spirits are fickle. Possible consequences are (probabilities subject to rebalancing):

50%: nothing ("The moods of the spirits are fickle, however, and none of them respond to your plea this time.") - Alternatively, just give the ability a flat 50% chance to fail (though I like the extra flavor, which also makes it clear why the success chance doesn't scale off Invo, Evo or anything else).
10%: controlled blink ("A benevolent spirit momentarily infuses you with translocational energy! Choose where to blink..." Again affected by -Tele.)
10%: fear ("Infused by the spirit of war, you let out a savage battlecry!" Fear effect akin to the fear scroll, with similar power.)
10%: summon spectral goblins (summoning scroll-style) ("The spirit of the dead hears your plea. A horde of your ancestors arrives to aid you!" Summons a big horde of spectral goblins/hobgoblins that fill up every available space in a radius of a few squares. Pretty strong early on, but mostly like Summon Butterflies later.)
5%: teleportation ("A benevolent spirit attempts to teleport you away to safety!" Affected by -Tele items and all that.)
5%: fog ("The spirits of the night hear your plea and shroud you in darkness!" Creates a powerful fog effect on top of you.)
4%: smite attack on user, leaves them on 1 HP if it would kill them ("The spirits are annoyed by your pleas for assistance. They smite you for your impertinence!")
4%: confuse user ("The spirits respond with a cacophony of malignant shrieks that overwhelm your mind! You are confused.")
2%: mark user ("You grab the attention of a particularly capricious spirit! This does not bode well... A sentinel's mark forms upon you.")

Basically, you have theoretically infinite teleport/blinking/fear/fog/quasi-summoning scrolls, except it's unreliable and you can suffer from negative consequences when you try - so you have to make sure not to wait too long when you get into trouble. 50% of no effect, 40% of something good happening, 10% of something bad happening every time you try.

Items are auto-ID'd and item curses don't affect you, as explained in the description. (No particular protection against mummy death curses.)

Other scrolls are simply not available. Sorry, no acquirements. Also no enchant weapon/armor, so good luck scavenging whatever you can get.

God restrictions:

No WJC worship (Gameplay reason: so that the player isn't overloaded by all kinds of martial arts mumbo-jumbo. Lore reason: WJC looks down on your crude and artless form of fighting.)
No Uskayaw worship (Gameplay reason: so that the player isn't overloaded by all kinds of martial arts mumbo-jumbo. Lore reason: Uskayaw looks down on your crude and artless form of dancing.)
No Ashenzari (Gameplay reason: no access to scrolls of remove curse. Lore reason: you simply can't partake in Ashenzari's curse without removing your sacred talismans, and no goblin would do that.)

Otherwise you can worship anything - the gods aren't really jealous of your spirits as they don't consider them to be any more powerful than, say, a phial of floods.

No amulets:

That's the final gimmick. Goblins can't wear amulets. As stated in the description, they already wear a bunch of tribal talismans around their neck. Rings are a-OK. This is partly for lore reasons, partly to introduce a new kind of equipment restriction on a new race.

Summary:

Basically, the gist of it is: Small race, not particularly great at stealth, bad at spellcasting, initially bad at melee combat too, though gets better as the chance to deal negative status effects improves. As you can see, there is a pretty long list of moves listed above - but the idea is that this doesn't actually introduce a great deal of complication for the player, unlike WJC/Uskayaw. The player doesn't have to move about in a fancy way or drastically change their fighting style to deal with goblin moves, they can just fight - and occasionally, they'll notice interesting things happen, like an enemy being blinded that allows them to run away more easily if they feel like they're in trouble, or one that starts bleeding that they don't have to keep hitting anymore, which can then abruptly change how the fight goes, usually for the better. They can also make strategic considerations eventually, partly based on their choice of weapon. A goblin that fights unarmed may wish to exploit Strangle by casting Metabolic Englaciation (if they can train their magic up that far!) or taking the Hepliaqlkana Hexer ancestor to do the same. Axe users can choose to draw several enemies and position them wisely around water and lava. Shankers, conversely, would try to make sure they fight a series of 1v1s. Again, this just requires a bit of strategic forethought about how to fight, and then it can become routine - no need to think carefully about every move like with Uskayaw or WJC, so hopefully no cognitive overload.

***

Well, there we go, my first race idea. Open to all kinds of suggestions for tweaks, including any more/better move ideas you have. The names and messages for the moves might use some tweaking, these are just a rough first draft to help you get an idea of how it'd all look in the game.
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Post Saturday, 17th February 2018, 04:17

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

Pros:
-Race that can't use scrolls. We don't have one, and it could be interesting.
-Small race that isn't pushed towards stealth
-Interesting combat style
-Interesting amulet option

Cons:
-Pigeonholed in playstyle (Summoning, Necromancy, or dodging-focused melee)
-Scrolless conduct means very little when combined with the amulet options. Scrolless mostly hurts you in terms of escape options and enchanting, and you have a built-in unlimited escape option.
-Formicid already mimics the interesting aspect of scrolless (namely, limited escape options) and goes even further with stasis.
-Combat style is WAY overcomplicated. The combat gimmick alone introduces half a dozen potential status effects and even more weapon-specific effects that don't currently exist, plus a bunch of special cases and interactions. You've got a couple gods' (or species') worth of complexity right there.
-Unintuitive god restrictions. Pretty much the only god restrictions we have at the moment are "If [god] hates that type of monster, [species] can't follow that god." Which is generally"If evil, then good gods hate you." Here, we have "If goblin, no dancing, martial arts, or curses."


Basically, it's an interesting thought, but you've gone too far here. Start with aptitudes, a major flaw, and an easy-to-understand gimmick. So, say, small, melee-favoring race (but with the potential to branch out), that can't read scrolls, but can [X]. Where [X] helps compensate for the lack of scrolls (and/or the lack of magic/ranged) but, importantly, does not perfectly replace scrolls. So if you take away scrolls, giving the ability "infinite escape scrolls, but rarely it backfires" is not a good option - you want to give them something different that enhances survivability to compensate. Formicids, for example, have stasis...but have dig and the ability to wield shields and 2-handers. Harder to get to safety, but tougher and always have a very different, dangerous escape option.

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Post Sunday, 18th February 2018, 11:18

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

All that melee combat stuff would traditionally fall under the domain of a God proposal in Stone Soup.

The benefits and challenge conducts of Crawl species should be designed with the entire range of background combos in mind -- when you take the melee combat stuff away, say because you happened to roll a Goblin Conjurer, or a Goblin Evoker, or a Goblin Invoker, or a Goblin Summoner, or a Goblin Archer, what does this proposal have left?

As far as I can see, it has no amulets and no scrolls.*†

Restricted consumables have already been done in the form of undead potion restrictions and Formicid teleport restrictions. There is value in the simplicity of an across-the-board scroll restriction, and that should maybe stay in as part of a future version of this proposal. What you have so far, however, isn't much to base a new species around.

*(Auto-ID and curse immunity are potentially interesting minor benefits, but they overlap entirely with Ashenzari. Overlap is a drawback to any proposal -- you want unique value to be brought to the game by coding and maintaining this.)

†(Your press button, activate random quasi-escape effect also has overlap already existing in the game, in the form of multiple sets of god abilities: Nemelex decks, Gozag potions, and even Xom abilities when you factor in player-manipulated onscreen tension. Replicating this kind of press-button, activate-random-escape ability isn't much of a drawback to your proposal, since this approach already works as part of multiple gods, but it's not bringing anything new to the table either.)


Also, this proposal isn't even out of the concept stage and you're already thinking up special case God restrictions for it. This is partially because much of what you've written would better fit as a God proposal, but any time you start realizing that a bunch of special cases would be needed just to make your cool new Crawl idea work, it's probably better to reconsider how your concept can be implemented in a way that won't later impose a code maintenance burden onto anyone wanting to keep your idea in future game versions. Special cases are a bad thing.


I'm always supportive of new species proposals, but this one needs work.

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Post Sunday, 18th February 2018, 13:08

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

Implojin wrote:when you take the melee combat stuff away, say because you happened to roll a Goblin Conjurer, or a Goblin Evoker, or a Goblin Invoker, or a Goblin Summoner, or a Goblin Archer..


No offense but do you even play Crawl?

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Post Sunday, 18th February 2018, 13:17

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

crawlnoob wrote:No offense but do you even play Crawl?

I don't even know what Crawl is, I thought this board was for Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

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Post Sunday, 18th February 2018, 14:32

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

You don't roll anything, starting stats are fixed.
Backgrounds are a starting kit, they don't strictly define or restrict your eventual character development.
There is no restriction on melee vs magic in this game: a "blaster mage" can easily and effectively wield a two-handed longsword, and while heavy armor does limit spell-casting, it is quite possible to cast in heavy armor and quite possible to achieve good melee defensive skills for a "magic-orientated" character.
There exists precisely one special case mechanic which does restrict magic totally in favor of melee, and it happens to be one of the most popular gods in the game. It can be taken at game-start using one special-case and equally popular background.

All that said, so what about deep-elves? What if you "roll" a deep-elf berserker, or a deep-elf fighter, or a deep-elf gladiator? Clearly this is sub-optimal compared to Mi or HO, but you can do just fine with careful play. Races are not meant to be balanced with each other and they are not meant to be "open" to all manner of back-ground influenced play styles.

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Post Sunday, 18th February 2018, 16:05

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

crawlnoob wrote:You don't roll anything, starting stats are fixed. Backgrounds are a starting kit...


fwiw implojin is a >100 win player...

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Post Monday, 19th February 2018, 08:47

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

advil wrote:fwiw implojin is a >100 win player...

Where is the scoreboard for Hello Kitty Island Adventure?

(Sorry.)
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Post Thursday, 22nd February 2018, 20:26

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

FWIW i've won this game hundreds of times... I wouldn't even bother to bring that up in a conversation about game mechanics, normally. I dont think the argument holds any water, that goblins need to be welcoming to all playstyle types, and certainly the idea that "picking an archer" is somehow going to stop you from doing melee effectively is just.. wrong.

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Post Saturday, 24th February 2018, 19:35

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

I think this race's issues could be reduced by a few tweaks.

1) The curses part should just be a passive. No ID'ing, you're just immune to curses.

2) Remove the weapon-specific attacks, because all of the other attacks you listed are as good as the weapon ones and can be used with any weapon, including ranged.

3) I'd say remove the restriction from Uk and Wu. Yeah, it'd be a logistical nightmare, but it would technically also be a rather powerful pairing with these gods. Think about it -- they have all of these multi-attack and alternate-attack methods, and you end up with a 50% chance of piling on negative effects with each of those. Suddenly whirlwinding with Wu and blinding 3 creatures seems much better, etc. Keep Ashenzari banned, because your immune to his curses and he doesn't like that.

4) Remove the spirit abilities. Immunity to curse and auto-applied negative effects are good enough (replacing an amulet for this isn't worth it, tho, when you'd usually have a pile of scrolls doing that job). In exchange, increase the aptitudes some. Of note is that they seem to be rather good a throwing -- in Baileys they almost always have returning tomahawks and early-game they always have stones.


What these revisions do is strip the concept back down to your original point -- a set of intrinsic combat boosts that scale with skill and immunity to curses slapped onto a small, evasive creature that can't use scrolls.
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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2018, 14:00

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

Hey y'all! Thanks for the feedback. I was not too focused on Crawl lately, but I felt like looking back at this thread and responding to all the feedback now. I might do a full revision of the idea at some point - for now, I'll just react to some observations:

Aean wrote:Cons:
-Pigeonholed in playstyle (Summoning, Necromancy, or dodging-focused melee)


Is that a bad thing? There are several races that aren't going to be very viable with certain playstyles, and the Goblin already has at least three different directions (as you described), which is more than some others.

Aean wrote:-Scrolless conduct means very little when combined with the amulet options. Scrolless mostly hurts you in terms of escape options and enchanting, and you have a built-in unlimited escape option.


Yeah, I suppose carbon-copying the effects of scrolls isn't that good.

Aean wrote:-Combat style is WAY overcomplicated. The combat gimmick alone introduces half a dozen potential status effects and even more weapon-specific effects that don't currently exist, plus a bunch of special cases and interactions. You've got a couple gods' (or species') worth of complexity right there.


Is that so? The idea was that it may all be complicated 'under the hood' but the player really doesn't need to understand that complexity to utilize the Goblin perks. Just understanding "melee causes status effects every now and then" already allows the player to strategize around it. Except for the weapon-specific effects, I suppose, which are a bit more complicated, and perhaps it'd be better to get rid of them. I did want to come up with something simpler - but at the same time, I couldn't figure out a way to simplify the dirty combat stuff further without reducing them to something that's meaningless or boring. That's probably something I'll have to think about for a future revision.

Alphaeus wrote:I think this race's issues could be reduced by a few tweaks.

1) The curses part should just be a passive. No ID'ing, you're just immune to curses.


Yeah, that sounds like a good idea actually. Would make all the *Drain, *Contam and such items more relevant for Goblins too if they'd have to stick to wear-IDing.

Alphaeus wrote:3) I'd say remove the restriction from Uk and Wu. Yeah, it'd be a logistical nightmare, but it would technically also be a rather powerful pairing with these gods. Think about it -- they have all of these multi-attack and alternate-attack methods, and you end up with a 50% chance of piling on negative effects with each of those. Suddenly whirlwinding with Wu and blinding 3 creatures seems much better, etc. Keep Ashenzari banned, because your immune to his curses and he doesn't like that.


Fair enough.

Alphaeus wrote:4) Remove the spirit abilities. Immunity to curse and auto-applied negative effects are good enough (replacing an amulet for this isn't worth it, tho, when you'd usually have a pile of scrolls doing that job). In exchange, increase the aptitudes some. Of note is that they seem to be rather good a throwing -- in Baileys they almost always have returning tomahawks and early-game they always have stones.


Isn't it going to be too hard to escape without either scrolls or spirit abilities? (Formicid have other scrolls that aren't tele/blinking, as well as digging, so they have it far easier.) Thinking about it, I was wondering if the following simplification would fix the issues with the spirit stuff - reflavor the goblin's talismans as ancestral talismans, and have them convey only a single ability: the 'summon goblin ancestors' ability, which is the most unique one of the original ideas. The player would still be able to summon a bunch of spectral goblin-type monsters, making it a stronger variant of Summon Butterflies that would actually be able to kill stuff early on, and the chance of success would be reasonably high - possibly scaling off of Invocations or Evocations after all. In exchange, invoking your ancestral talisman would cause a minor Drain effect to happen, along with a short cooldown of around 4-5 turns (Exhaustion, or a new -Talisman effect). So we have something unique to Goblins, and also a way to make up for the loss of escape scrolls in a way that doesn't just replace them. The issue is that Summon Butterflies is something almost any Goblin will already be able to cast... but the draining attacks can weaken monsters they hit, so it's not entirely the same thing.
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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2018, 18:27

Re: Race suggestion: Goblin

Malevolent wrote:
Alphaeus wrote:4) Remove the spirit abilities. Immunity to curse and auto-applied negative effects are good enough (replacing an amulet for this isn't worth it, tho, when you'd usually have a pile of scrolls doing that job). In exchange, increase the aptitudes some. Of note is that they seem to be rather good a throwing -- in Baileys they almost always have returning tomahawks and early-game they always have stones.


Isn't it going to be too hard to escape without either scrolls or spirit abilities? (Formicid have other scrolls that aren't tele/blinking, as well as digging, so they have it far easier.) Thinking about it, I was wondering if the following simplification would fix the issues with the spirit stuff - reflavor the goblin's talismans as ancestral talismans, and have them convey only a single ability: the 'summon goblin ancestors' ability, which is the most unique one of the original ideas. The player would still be able to summon a bunch of spectral goblin-type monsters, making it a stronger variant of Summon Butterflies that would actually be able to kill stuff early on, and the chance of success would be reasonably high - possibly scaling off of Invocations or Evocations after all. In exchange, invoking your ancestral talisman would cause a minor Drain effect to happen, along with a short cooldown of around 4-5 turns (Exhaustion, or a new -Talisman effect). So we have something unique to Goblins, and also a way to make up for the loss of escape scrolls in a way that doesn't just replace them. The issue is that Summon Butterflies is something almost any Goblin will already be able to cast... but the draining attacks can weaken monsters they hit, so it's not entirely the same thing.


1) Well, the point is that if you can't use scrolls, you know what you're getting into. This works much like mummies, who have extremely limited healing/buffing options in one sense because of no potions. In this case, however, as a goblin this would put a premium on certain things people don't normally consider. Rings of teleportation, for example, could have their power enhanced in an update (this seems feasible enough, since they almost never cause a problem for me before I can remove curse on them), but with immunity to curses a goblin could swap to one of those to escape (scrolls have lag anyway). Memorization of Blink, Cblink, etc might also be useful. Plenty of later artefacts give +Blink if that's so serious, and often just quaffing a potion of haste + boots of running would do the trick.

If anything, you could give them a base speed boost much like spriggan, though not necessarily THAT fast.

2) I'd still say remove the spirit abilities. Your new suggestion overlaps quite obviously with god abilities AND spells, when really if you want auto-allies you should just start as a summoner or worship one of the many ally gods.

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