Species Proposal – Troglodyte


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Temple Termagant

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Post Monday, 12th March 2018, 22:18

Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Purpose of Proposal
Many have expressed interest in a species unable to read scrolls – a trait which imposes a huge downside to the player. At the same time, I've been experimenting with the concept for a species with significantly accelerated piety gain – a huge upside. These two traits now attempt to balance each other out in this concept of blind faith.

The Species
Troglodytes are a cave-dwelling species lacking eyesight. Having adapted to an ever dark environment, their other senses have grown keen, allowing them to navigate their surroundings and sense other beings. However, these senses are of little use when it comes to reading scrolls. What Troglodytes lack in eyesight, they make up for in pious zeal. A Troglodyte is little without its god, finding meaning and strength through worship. With their unrestrained fanaticism, Troglodytes allow gods to use them as conduits for manifesting their power in the world.

Image

Innate Abilities
  • Troglodytes cannot read scrolls
  • Troglodytes have reduced line of sight (from 7 to 6)
  • Troglodytes are obsessed with worship (intrinsic faith)
  • Troglodytes can sense invisible creatures
  • Troglodytes can remove cursed equipment at the cost of moderate draining
Troglodytes have a base Strength of 9, Intelligence of 7 and Dexterity of 9 (before Background modifiers).

Level Bonuses
  • +1 strength or dexterity every 4 levels
  • Average HP and MP
  • 3 MR per level
Aptitudes
  Code:
+1 Fighting
-1 Short Blades
-1 Long Blades
+0 Axes
+1 Maces
-1 Polearms
+1 Staves
+1 Unarmed Combat

-1 Bows
-1 Crossbows
-1 Slings
-1 Throwing

+0 Armour
+2 Dodging
-1 Shields
+3 Stealth

-1 Spellcasting
-1 Fire Magic
-1 Ice Magic
-3 Air magic
+2 Earth Magic
+0 Poison Magic
-1 Conjuration
-1 Hexes
-1 Charms
-1 Summoning
-1 Necromancy
-1 Translocation
-1 Transmutation

+1 Invocation
-2 Evocation

+0 EXP

Design Notes (obsolete as of 20.03.18)
  • Slightly above average starting stats to make up for the lack of scrolls and weak aptitudes, making pre-temple especially tough. This is balanced out by the slower stat gain.
  • Conservative aptitudes overall, but casting aptitudes were not butchered, as to make casting oriented gods such as Sif Muna and Vehumet options worth considering.
  • Having at least one good ranged aptitude makes sure that Okawaru can be played using both melee and ranged oriented paths. There is also certainly room for more species that can handle crossbows well.
  • Losing access to scrolls means losing access to escape options, gear quality (enchantment/acquirement/branding) and situational utility. The intention is to increase the frequency at which god abilities may be used, to in turn make up for these weaknesses.
  • The increase in piety gain does not affect the frequency of gifts. It does, however, ensure that gift thresholds are reached sooner.
  • In the case of Ru, piety per sacrifice is not increased, but rather the frequency at which sacrifices are made available. While this does not affect the theoretical power ceiling of Ru's influence, it does allow Troglodytes to be more picky with their choices, often allowing for a more favorable set of sacrifices in the long run. This also increases strategic options when considering sacrifices, as the player is more likely to be able to combine specific sacrifices over the course of the game.
  • Since Troglodytes excel in piety, not in profit, Gozag is unimpressed by the Troglodyte's worship, and awards no further advantage than usual.

I hope you enjoy this concept. Any feedback is welcome.
Last edited by Pingas on Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 21:21, edited 4 times in total.

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Snake Sneak

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Post Tuesday, 13th March 2018, 01:22

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

I actually originally wanted to make a species with increased Piety gain (but got sidelined by having a stronger concept for a silent species instead), so I'm interested in the idea here.

Worshipping Ashenzari isn't as big of a problem as it sounds; at least according to the wiki, worshipping Ash automatically IDs remove curse scrolls, and you merely sacrifice the scrolls via ability to curse equips now, not read them. My own species idea suggested either no curses and no ash, or remove curses for draining, and I'd say about the same here.

Although I do think double piety gain is a bit much; there's a threshold where you'd be able to spam expensively destructive powers -too- much, recouping most of the piety cost almost immediately, like Slouch or Disaster Area. A species like this could walk onto V:5 and tackle it all without stairdancing by just spamming a strong god ability... well, they'd still run out of MP and need to regen, but the point is there. I'd probably recommend tuning it down to just be like a stronger Amulet of Faith, and they can enjoy the extra gifts in exchange. After all, Sif/Veh don't actually look like remotely good choices unless the gifting is sped up; they aren't piety-intensive gods so even a caster would be much better suited elsewhere on this species.

Trog/Okawaru wouldn't become overly powerful of a god choice with increased gift speed; Trog's probably gonna give you a good weapon before long either way, and you're even more limited than normal with no magic AND no scrolls AND a terrible evocation apt, even if you're gonna love the hell out of extra Trog summons. Okawaru would be very solid, but he usually is, and normal species generally aren't that concerned about running his piety out regardless.

God choice wouldn't be too limited, either way. Especially Chei and Qazlal... but also Ely, Nemelex, Jiyva, Wu Jian, Zin, and TSO all have powers that would be nice to spam with reckless abandon; Wu Jian is less extreme but no tele scolls means whirlwind escapes are solid. Fast track to Yred's life drain and bone dragons, yes please. It'd be a fun species to play and scroll-less is probably negative enough to warrant the boons of spamming piety abilities.

uhh tl;dr version:I like the idea, but piety gain probably needs to be tuned down, and IMO gifts should enjoy extra frequency as well. I'm also dubious about the +2 crossbows on a nearly blind species, and the name overlaps with Trog, but those are both easy to tweak.

Alternatively, instead of lowering the piety gain, it could perhaps work to counterbalance with increasing the MP cost of all invocation-based abilities. You can't use them back-to-back easily, in exchange for the piety cost being far less of an issue. It's much easier to get MP back than piety, but not in the rush of a fight, and not on a species with terrible evocations. Sif/Veh's mp boosting powers still work great for casters as neither god has any MP-cost abilities.

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Post Tuesday, 13th March 2018, 14:27

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

While I like the whole idea of species being innately unable to use some of the game natural features, I don't think this could be realistically done with scrolls without it getting too complicated/hard to balance. While most potions are simply buffs (haste, might, agi, brill, invis, berserk, res, invi, lign, flight) or heals/status removals (curing, hw, ambrosia, canc), scrolls serve a very broad range of purposes. Just, look, this concept forbids:

  • Identify, which at the very least means you'll waste 1 of each potion you find early game, inevitably blind-quaff degen/mut, eventually suffer Drain from the harm amulet and some unwield penalties from artifacts you would usually pre-id. Not too big, but really annoying
  • Remove curse. This certainly requires some imitative solution, the ability which costs Drain sounds Ok though
  • Amnesia, which means if you want to heavily rely on spells you must either worship Sif Muna (not the most exciting god for double piety gain to put it mildly) or train Spellcasting higher than you would normally do just because those Magic Darts and Searing Rays will keep messing your spell list the whole game
  • Enchant weapon, enchant armour, acquirement scrolls, so it becomes much harder to get decently enchanted gear. Shops and floor/monster drops rarely provide items over +3, so you're left to hope for some cool artifacts. This, combined with faster piety gain trait, makes it seem like Oka is a very appealing choice, but..
  • Last and the most important -- you toss away all primary escape options: no Tele, Blinking, Fear, Fog, Summoning. IMO it effectively limits your choice of deity to those gods providing at least some means of getting monsters out of LOS: Lucy, Zin, Nemelex, maybe Dith or Wu. The statement about this race having synergy with Qazlal sounds ridiculous to me: every monster on the floor is aware of your position and as soon as it enters your LOS it stays in until it's dead or you're dead, good luck spamming Disaster Area.

Overall, I don't think inability to read scrolls works well with faster piety gain because it severely limits your god choices, but then I don't think inability to read scrolls works well overall because it requires too many workarounds. In its current state this is a strong candidate for the worst species in the game.

P.S. Why do they have +2 in Crossbows and not in Throwing?? The species are fucking cavemen who can't read I doubt they'd even figure out what is Crossbow for

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Slime Squisher

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Post Tuesday, 13th March 2018, 14:59

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Stairdancer wrote:While I like the whole idea of species being innately unable to use some of the game natural features, I don't think this could be realistically done with scrolls without it getting too complicated/hard to balance. While most potions are simply buffs (haste, might, agi, brill, invis, berserk, res, invi, lign, flight) or heals/status removals (curing, hw, ambrosia, canc), scrolls serve a very broad range of purposes. Just, look, this concept forbids:


This is true, I hand't thought of it, but you are spot on.


There already is a race that kind of doesn't benefit from Scrolls as much, Formicids, which can't get anything out of two of the most reliable escape scrolls.

Snake Sneak

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Post Tuesday, 13th March 2018, 16:26

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Maybe that's true. >_> Perhaps just greatly scale down the piety bonus and give them max Blurry Vision mutation? You can read escape scrolls, it just takes some time, so you have to do it -before- you're at critical HP.

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Barkeep

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Post Tuesday, 13th March 2018, 17:56

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

A no scrolls species sound good to me. IMO, curses and amnesia are the only things you really need to provide for (you can win with bad gear, use-identify items, and do without escape items), but being stuck with an item or spell you don't want would suck. Drain or a maxhp/maxmp cost seem reasonable for that. I kinda like permanent costs for those things because learning spells & trying on gear are player choices... making the questions of "do I learn this spell?" or "do I try on that glowing plate?" somewhat meaningful might be interesting.

I wouldn't flavor the species as blind (they can still learn spells and are good at ranged) and I don't know it needs a bonus piety intrinsic either. It's not like Mu gets a bunch of buffs in exchange for being potionless. If you do have piety bonus I would have it work mechanically identically to {faith}.

I'd also ditch detect creatures, no scrolls is enough gimmick for one species.
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Post Tuesday, 13th March 2018, 18:33

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

I kinda like the blurry vision idea... but as a background rather than a race.

Temple Termagant

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Post Wednesday, 14th March 2018, 12:49

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

njvack wrote:A no scrolls species sound good to me. IMO, curses and amnesia are the only things you really need to provide for (you can win with bad gear, use-identify items, and do without escape items), but being stuck with an item or spell you don't want would suck. Drain or a maxhp/maxmp cost seem reasonable for that.

There are a lot good points being raised so far. I think there are two main ways of going about it from here – either the softer approach through innate blurry vision 3, or complete lack of scrolls. By going for blurry vision, the player still has out-of-combat options such as enchanting, acquirement and magic mapping, but that reading scrolls become much weaker as escape. Though I feel that this approach is too similar to Formicid, since in effect, the player would mostly lose the in-combat escape options. I therefore lean more towards total restriction of scrolls, but an option to amnesia and remove curse at the cost of draining.

The proposed changes from the original post would therefore be:

  • Even out all ranged apts to -1.
  • Handle piety trait to be mechanically identical to {faith}.
  • Still unable to read scrolls, but allowing for amnesia/remove curse at the cost of draining.

njvack wrote:I'd also ditch detect creatures, no scrolls is enough gimmick for one species.

Note it said "sense nearby invisible creatures", it was just a reworded form of SInv, not a creature detection trait similar to antennae. Since Troglodytes don't use eyesight to navigate their surroundings, someone turning invisible wouldn't hide their presence. It's just that "see invisible" sounds a bit wrong when the species doesn't see.
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Post Wednesday, 14th March 2018, 22:41

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Some sort of extreme form of blurry vision sounds good.

Wouldn't break any of the enchantment, remove curse or utility scrolls, but it would discourage any use of emergency scrolls


I think it would be unwise to replace everything scrolls do with entries in the "a" menu
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 19th March 2018, 15:35

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

I actually like the "you can't enchant gear or scroll-id" part of the species.

@Pingas ah, sInv makes sense. I agree that they should have sInv but that's because I think every species should have sInv. I don't think the species gains from being flavored as blind, they can just not have scrolls work. If you wanted to carry that sort of "they have trouble with stored magic" flavor forward, they could also be unable to use evokables — or at least have a terrible evocations aptitude.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Monday, 19th March 2018, 17:01

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

I read fast and might have missed something, but how about giving it reduced sight radius?
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Post Monday, 19th March 2018, 18:15

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Do you mean like nightstalker or an asymmetrical player/monster line of sight?
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Post Monday, 19th March 2018, 20:08

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Like nightstalker, I guess. Having a slightly smaller los. The opposite of Batrachi.
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Post Monday, 19th March 2018, 23:34

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

I feel any proposal for a spell-less species has to include details about how it will replace remove curse scroll. Other scrolls can be done without but not this one.
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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 00:49

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Would immunity to curses be game-breaking? The obsidian axe is the only problem I can think of, because it's designed for not being freely swappable.
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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 01:41

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Shtopit wrote:Would immunity to curses be game-breaking? The obsidian axe is the only problem I can think of, because it's designed for not being freely swappable.

What about Ash?
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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 02:49

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Two options: disabling Ash for them, or giving them the ability to curse and uncurse items exclusively with Ash.
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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 08:20

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

chequers wrote:I feel any proposal for a spell-less species has to include details about how it will replace remove curse scroll. Other scrolls can be done without but not this one.

Troglodytes are resistant to curses.

Forcibly removing a cursed item could prove fatal for other mortal species, but only causes a Troglodyte to suffer moderate draining.

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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 13:58

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

In which case, they're actually a great species for Ash! And the scrying sort of helps avoid bad situations you can't scroll out of (although you might still want a better panic-button god)
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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 17:27

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

chequers wrote:I feel any proposal for a spell-less species has to include details about how it will replace remove curse scroll. Other scrolls can be done without but not this one.

This one did, OP suggested curse removal via drain, I suggested curse removal by spending maxhp.
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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 20:30

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Shtopit wrote:I read fast and might have missed something, but how about giving it reduced sight radius?

I think this is a really interesting idea both flavor and gameplay wise. Since Troglodytes have limited escape options, they would want to stay out of dangerous situations in the first place. By reducing los, it allows them to more easily skulk around undetected, and attract fewer monsters at once.

Realz wrote:
chequers wrote:I feel any proposal for a spell-less species has to include details about how it will replace remove curse scroll. Other scrolls can be done without but not this one.

Troglodytes are resistant to curses.

Forcibly removing a cursed item could prove fatal for other mortal species, but only causes a Troglodyte to suffer moderate draining.

That's a really cool way of looking at it. We might still have to come up with a flavor reason for why Troglodytes are more resistant to curses than others.

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Post Tuesday, 20th March 2018, 21:54

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Taking your feedback into your consideration, I've made the following changes to the original proposal:

  • Line of sight reduced from 7 to 6
  • Piety gain reworked to function as an intrinsic {faith}
  • Gained ability to remove cursed equipment at the cost of moderate draining
  • Starting intelligence reduced from 8 to 7
  • Stat gain changed from 5:SID to 4:SD

Aptitude changes:
  Code:
- Fighting apt increased from +0 to +1
- Unarmed apt increased from +0 to +1
- Axes apt increased from -1 to +0
- Maces apt increased from -1 to +1
- Staves apt increased from -1 to +1
- Dodging apt increased from +1 to +2

Design notes:
  • Reduced line of sight plays well with Troglodytes' lack of escape options. Giving the player tools to proactively avoid dangerous situations makes it possible to more consistently play around Troglodytes' biggest weakness
  • Removing cursed equipment at the cost of draining does not remove curses from the items themselves. This means that curses will still have a meaning for Troglodytes. Knowingly putting on a cursed ring will have implications on its ability to be frequently swapped during combat. However, the player is not restricted from strategic swapping in the long term, such as making room for a ring of resist corrosion before doing Slime. As a one-time cost, the drain is tolerable – only frequent swapping would cause it to get out of hand.
  • Made an effort to make the "primitive cave-creature" aspect of the Troglodyte more apparent:
    • Increased aptitudes for "bashy" weapon types and unarmed
    • Decreased starting intelligence and intelligence gain
    • While they have received an increased focus on remaining unseen, they still lack precision for stabbing

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think this species is starting to feel quite unique, while remaining consistent in its flavor. I hope you enjoy this direction as well.

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Post Monday, 26th March 2018, 19:52

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Amulet of Faith would be marked as a grey/useless item?
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Post Tuesday, 27th March 2018, 07:31

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

mattlistener wrote:Amulet of Faith would be marked as a grey/useless item?

I would imagine so, since you can either have {faith} or not. As such, an additional source wouldn't have any effect.

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Post Wednesday, 28th March 2018, 07:06

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Pingas wrote:Taking your feedback into your consideration, I've made the following changes to the original proposal:

  • Line of sight reduced from 7 to 6
  • Piety gain reworked to function as an intrinsic {faith}
  • Gained ability to remove cursed equipment at the cost of moderate draining
  • Starting intelligence reduced from 8 to 7
  • Stat gain changed from 5:SID to 4:SD

Aptitude changes:
  Code:
- Fighting apt increased from +0 to +1
- Unarmed apt increased from +0 to +1
- Axes apt increased from -1 to +0
- Maces apt increased from -1 to +1
- Staves apt increased from -1 to +1
- Dodging apt increased from +1 to +2

Design notes:
  • Reduced line of sight plays well with Troglodytes' lack of escape options. Giving the player tools to proactively avoid dangerous situations makes it possible to more consistently play around Troglodytes' biggest weakness
  • Removing cursed equipment at the cost of draining does not remove curses from the items themselves. This means that curses will still have a meaning for Troglodytes. Knowingly putting on a cursed ring will have implications on its ability to be frequently swapped during combat. However, the player is not restricted from strategic swapping in the long term, such as making room for a ring of resist corrosion before doing Slime. As a one-time cost, the drain is tolerable – only frequent swapping would cause it to get out of hand.
  • Made an effort to make the "primitive cave-creature" aspect of the Troglodyte more apparent:
    • Increased aptitudes for "bashy" weapon types and unarmed
    • Decreased starting intelligence and intelligence gain
    • While they have received an increased focus on remaining unseen, they still lack precision for stabbing

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think this species is starting to feel quite unique, while remaining consistent in its flavor. I hope you enjoy this direction as well.

I feel like they should have claws:1, no specific reason, it just seems like something that they should have.
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Post Thursday, 29th March 2018, 15:03

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

A lot of these posts are underestimating how much of a convenience IDing floor loot is in the late game. Can you imagine clearing elf or vaults 5 with a troglodyte? Trying on each ring/pair of enchanted gloves one at a time, fiddling with your inventory to do so, leaving the level to gain back your lost xp every time you try on a cursed item... and then returning later once you've reduced your drain to continue the process.

Obviously id/curse minigame shouldn't exist. Maybe troglodyte would be a good way to experiment with an id-less curse-immune game.

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Post Thursday, 29th March 2018, 15:32

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Auto-ID sounds like a good idea. Curses of drain can stay there and be occasionally relevant, when they occur on good items.
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Post Thursday, 29th March 2018, 18:54

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

IMHO innate Blurry Vision 3 is better than workarounds to give back some functionality provided by scrolls that the species cannot do without. That solves issues raised with amnesia, enchant weapon/armour, identify, and remove curse, but still leaves blink/fear/fog/holy word/immolation/etc severely restricted.
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Post Thursday, 29th March 2018, 19:44

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

I think that a species that completely eschews a class of items has additional value. This is why I'd prefer keeping complete exclusion of scrolls. In part it's because it's a good way to limit inventory pressure, in part it's because it changes the way you play, and requires the creator to find workarounds.

Some scrolls arent' necessary: enchant weapon and armour. They are just a power up.

Some scrolls can be worked around: so curse and identify.

Some change the way you play through their absence, like teleport and blink. The same for amnesia. The difference is that amnesia is only occasionally useful. I would say, only rarely. And, if you want to have a caster with flexibility, you can go with Sif. So I don't think that its unavailability would be a problem. Casters would play differently.

Giving scrolls access with blurry 3 also would bring to some IMHO dislikeable situations, where you can pick up the most powerful scrolls (fog, fear, blink...), but you will die if you use them, but they are so useful and powerful! --> the game is sending mixed signals on how to use your few inventory lots, because man, edge cases! So it's best to have a straightforward, decisive mechanic.

I agree that small claws would be lore-appropriate.
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Post Wednesday, 2nd May 2018, 10:02

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

In case anyone is interested in giving this a go, I've whipped up an initial implementation of this here: https://github.com/P1start/crawl/tree/troglodyte
Let me know if it's buggy or anything; I don't have much experience with Crawl development. I also haven't thought about or tested the interaction between Ashenzari and Troglodytes, so it probably doesn't work well at the moment.

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Post Wednesday, 2nd May 2018, 14:00

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

P1start wrote:I also haven't thought about or tested the interaction between Ashenzari and Troglodytes, so it probably doesn't work well at the moment.


Currently, under the iteration of {rCurse} so to speak, Ash seems like a really powerful god. Troglodytes can still pick up scrolls of remove curse, and since they have no use for them that means you can use them exclusively to curse items ala Ash (and that isn't reading of them, but burning them in a god ability). Once cursed, you never need to UNcurse, so that will conserve the scrolls. Furthermore, with Ash currently, swapping items has a hard limit -- no scrolls, no swap -- and you have to use EXTRA scrolls to recurse items to maintain bonuses. Troglodytes benefit from being able to swap at-will, with the exchange of draining...which Ash's boosts mitigate, and late-game mitigates as well.

Effectively, Troglodyte(AnyClass)^Ash would be just shy of immune to curses (increasingly so in late-game), since you both want them, have a placebo for them, and the ability to work around the biggest problem with them.

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Post Wednesday, 2nd May 2018, 22:11

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Alphaeus wrote:
P1start wrote:I also haven't thought about or tested the interaction between Ashenzari and Troglodytes, so it probably doesn't work well at the moment.


Currently, under the iteration of {rCurse} so to speak, Ash seems like a really powerful god. Troglodytes can still pick up scrolls of remove curse, and since they have no use for them that means you can use them exclusively to curse items ala Ash (and that isn't reading of them, but burning them in a god ability). Once cursed, you never need to UNcurse, so that will conserve the scrolls. Furthermore, with Ash currently, swapping items has a hard limit -- no scrolls, no swap -- and you have to use EXTRA scrolls to recurse items to maintain bonuses. Troglodytes benefit from being able to swap at-will, with the exchange of draining...which Ash's boosts mitigate, and late-game mitigates as well.

Effectively, Troglodyte(AnyClass)^Ash would be just shy of immune to curses (increasingly so in late-game), since you both want them, have a placebo for them, and the ability to work around the biggest problem with them.

While I haven't actually tried the species yet, I agree with 100% of this analysis. That said, I also don't think it's necessarily a problem. It's a boost to Ash, but not necessarily broken. Maybe play testing/people who use ash more often (I rarely do) can say whether it's too outright strong, but ultimately all it means is that you can switch your equipment more times. Switching still isn't free - it costs draining, but draining isn't as severe as the usual limit.

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Post Thursday, 3rd May 2018, 08:08

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Because the aptitides aren't a main point of this species, i recommend more flat aptitudes (removing the -1 and +1 here and there).
  Code:
+1 Fighting
+1 Short Blades
+1 Long Blades
+1 Axes
+1 Maces
+1 Polearms
+1 Staves
+1 Unarmed Combat

-1 Bows
-1 Crossbows
-1 Slings
-1 Throwing

0 Armour
+2 Dodging
0 Shields
+3 Stealth

-1 Spellcasting
0 Fire Magic
0 Ice Magic
-2 Air magic
+2 Earth Magic
0 Poison Magic
0 Conjuration
0 Hexes
0 Charms
0 Summoning
0 Necromancy
0 Translocation
0 Transmutation

+1 Invocation
0 Evocation

+0 EXP

So mostly flat, but +1 melee and -1 ranged because of bad vision. Magic flat, except earth boost and air penalty for flavor. Stealth and dodging boosts make sense for flavor reasons and because of limited escape options.
Don't see need to penalize evo, because no scrolls is a strong penalty.

Solid proposal otherwise!

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Post Thursday, 3rd May 2018, 08:18

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

I would argue that it is harder to be stealthy and avoid hits when you have bad vision.
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Post Thursday, 3rd May 2018, 18:26

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

VeryAngryFelid wrote:I would argue that it is harder to be stealthy and avoid hits when you have bad vision.


Ofc, but the concept here is the old "blind fighting dude who has compensating senses" so I'll suppose it is passable.

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Post Tuesday, 29th May 2018, 13:17

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

There was an idea I was going to suggest for formicide or a new class (bat?) but if you'd like to use it on troglodytes I'd be more than happy: lower LOS a lot (say 4) but give a very long range (say 7 or 8) view that leaves enemies/terrain/treasure undefined (like antennae and gnoll's nose) but still needs unobstructed view (so no view behind a wall, like the other two). Call it myopia if you want. :)

I think it'd make gameplay quite unique, especially with spellcasters: either you wait for them to get real close, or you blast where you see lots of far-away but indistinguishable enemies (are they asleep? are they immune to your attack? are you positioning your area attack correctly?).


Originally I had imagined this for a "bat-man" specie, that had poor eyesight and couldn't read scrolls but compensated with "sonar" vision. It had the advantage of "flying", but I think your advantage of "piety" is more interesting. And I don't think there's room for both.

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Post Tuesday, 29th May 2018, 15:53

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Antares wrote:There was an idea I was going to suggest for formicide or a new class (bat?) but if you'd like to use it on troglodytes I'd be more than happy: lower LOS a lot (say 4) but give a very long range (say 7 or 8) view that leaves enemies/terrain/treasure undefined (like antennae and gnoll's nose) but still needs unobstructed view (so no view behind a wall, like the other two). Call it myopia if you want. :)

I think it'd make gameplay quite unique, especially with spellcasters: either you wait for them to get real close, or you blast where you see lots of far-away but indistinguishable enemies (are they asleep? are they immune to your attack? are you positioning your area attack correctly?).


Originally I had imagined this for a "bat-man" specie, that had poor eyesight and couldn't read scrolls but compensated with "sonar" vision. It had the advantage of "flying", but I think your advantage of "piety" is more interesting. And I don't think there's room for both.


I was ready to immediately write this off, but I actually find this really interesting upon reading further. Would enemies in the "extended" LOS detect the player? I think that's a major balancing point of this, and flavor-wise, having bad eyesight shouldn't make other things have bad eyesight as well. But if they can detect you anyway, then what's the point of having myopia?

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Post Tuesday, 29th May 2018, 17:20

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

That would mostly just be interface screw. Think about why Mislead was removed.

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Post Tuesday, 29th May 2018, 21:15

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

PseudoLoneWolf wrote:I was ready to immediately write this off, but I actually find this really interesting upon reading further. Would enemies in the "extended" LOS detect the player? I think that's a major balancing point of this, and flavor-wise, having bad eyesight shouldn't make other things have bad eyesight as well. But if they can detect you anyway, then what's the point of having myopia?
Yes, it shouldn`t affect the monsters, just yourself. The point of myopia would be that it`s a penalty in that you can`t distinguish between enemies (or know how hurt they are, or what they are wearing/helding) beyond a short distance. However if the extended LOS is bigger than the usual LOS it could be a good counter-balance: you can`t see very well but you can sense monsters further away than usual. It would be a nice representation, imho, of a character that is short-sighted but compensates this with improvement in its other senses (mostly hearing), like a bat-like humanoid or a troglodyte.

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Post Tuesday, 29th May 2018, 21:16

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

duvessa wrote:That would mostly just be interface screw. Think about why Mislead was removed.

I`ve never heard of "Mislead". Is there any place I could find more, or could someone explain it?

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Post Tuesday, 29th May 2018, 21:37

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte


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Post Tuesday, 29th May 2018, 22:06

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

duvessa wrote:That would mostly just be interface screw. Think about why Mislead was removed.

As I said it would change matters a lot for spellcasters or hunters, especially if the shorter LOS (the normal one) is very short (say 3-4): lots of spells have a longer LOS than that, so from afar you can just shoot at some unknown enemy -- possibly ineffectly or counterproductively (e.g. you wake up a fast enemy or a very strong one). As they get closer you finally get the info you need, but obviously they are now close to fight you melee or worse. I think you`d be forced to modify your strategy, e.g. have high stealth to let get you closer to have a view, or have things like passwall/teleport always ready.

But it would also have its good side: yes, you`d lose a lot of detail, but you`d gain a great -- albeit vague -- understanding of what surrounds, which could help pick isolated monsters with your stabber, figure out where to flee without getting surrounded, or find a portal faster (e.g. exit of Abyss or a timed branch entrance).

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Post Wednesday, 6th June 2018, 13:32

Re: Species Proposal – Troglodyte

Being able to read books and not scrolls is odd to me. I think I would add something like pubby's ogre magic thing.

The gist of it is:
You don't learn spells from spell books, instead you 'discover' spells by gaining experience. The formula is 1 random spell every 2 levels, up to level 20.
Because of this, you only discover a few (10) spells per game.
The only spell school is spellcasting. All spells are "spellcasting" type.

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