Slime Squisher
Posts: 392
Joined: Sunday, 11th September 2016, 17:21
Vampire rework proposal
My goals are:
* to preserve the vampire's identity of gaining dynamic intrinsic mutations and utilizing blood as a resource.
* to provide multiple modes of gameplay, each with its own advantages, so that none is strictly superior.
* to make blood management more tactically & strategically interesting.
* to eliminate incentives for tedious gameplay like saving monsters in "blood banks" or deliberately burning nutrition before exploring.
Vampires switch between 3 "forms" via innate abilities, at the cost of exhaustion. These are not transmutations, just lists of innate mutations. At Bloodless, forms provide no benefit, but as nutrition increases, forms gradually provide more innate mutations from the list. Higher nutrition always means more power, so there's never an incentive to wait for nutrition levels to drop before exploring further.
Potions of blood no longer expire, so there's no longer any benefit in saving monsters to backtrack and feed on later. However, the other effect of having higher nutrition is to increase metabolism & hunger costs (as per existing behavior, or similar). So, trying to maintain the full power of a form indefinitely should deplete a player's supply of blood, whereas eschewing the benefits of forms should allow players to stockpile blood for use in the extended game where drinkable corpses are rare, with plenty of middle ground in between. Also, like other undead, Vampires have a unique reaction to mutation effects, which is to lose nutrition, and the magnitude of this loss does scale with current nutrition level as with all other forms of nutrition loss, so maintaining the full list of a form's mutations in extended could cost quite a lot of blood potions.
Acute vision and vampiric bite are now form-specific benefits at high nutrition. All other historical effects of Vampire nutrition are now static. HP regeneration is normal at all times. Negative energy resistance, rotting resistance, torment resistance, poison immunity, and fangs 3 are all permanent. Vampires cannot be transmuted by any means (not even into a bat), and cannot go berserk (Trog will not accept them as worshipers). Cold resistance is dropped.
Unarmed aptitude is dropped to -3, Stealth to 4, Enchantments to 3, and Poison to -2. Fighting is increased to 0, Long Blades to 1, Armour to 0, Spellcasting to 0, Conjurations to -1, and Transmutations to 5. Stats start at 9, 9, 9 with a random increase to any stat every 4 levels. This is all meant to allow a bit more flexibility in strategic direction, rather than hamfisting them into being Enchanters.
Bat form:
Big wings
Powered by death 1
Repulsion field 1
Powered by death 2
Repulsion field 2
Powered by death 3
Repulsion field 3
Augmentation 1
Augmentation 2
Augmentation 3
Blood form (game is started in this form):
Sanguine armour 1
Robust 1
Sanguine armour 2
Robust 2
Sanguine armour 3
Robust 3
Vampiric bite (now only recoveres HP, no longer provides nutrition)
Augmentation 1
Augmentation 2
Augmentation 3
Shadow form:
Sturdy Frame 1
Nightstalker 1
Sturdy Frame 2
Nightstalker 2
Sturdy Frame 3
Nightstalker 3
Acute vision
Augmentation 1
Augmentation 2
Augmentation 3