Mines Malingerer
Posts: 36
Joined: Wednesday, 13th February 2013, 00:38
Species Proposal: Proteans
Medium difficulty health-tank warrior-mage whose inventory choices have strategic and tactical impact. Also I've always wanted a "D&D gelatinous cube" kind of species to play.
Description
Proteans are a race of vaguely humanoid amoebas. Their mostly amorphous bodies struggle to maintain a consistent arrangement of the armor and weapons suspended in it. Their bodies love mutations and latent magical powers in items, and possessing these vastly increases their health and mass. Due to their protoplasmic flesh, they are adverse to temperature extremes and rot, but suited to other forms of magic.
Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations
* Gains +5 max hp and mp for each acquired mutation and each artefact item carried.
* Enlarges by 1 size and +2 strength (but also +1 movement delay) for each 100 current hp, up to Gigantic.
* When attacking, uses a random melee weapon in inventory (includes unarmed) instead of wielded.
* As proteans gain experience (avg. 3-4 times per level), they may reshuffle all their armor and jewelry slots with random wearables from inventory (includes nothing). Beware that this reshuffling bypasses curses and warnings for harmful egos.
* Immediately digests corpses and rations they receive, or on tiles they move onto. Same eating mechanics as Ghouls otherwise. This counts as decay for Fedhas.
* At levels 3, 9, and 15 gains a rank of pseudopod auxillary attack that engulfs enemies 3 sizes smaller, dealing extra asphyxiation damage, and extracting nutrition from living creatures.
* Immune to self-transformations, and cannot gain mutations of limbs or skin.
* Proteans are Chaotic, and cannot worship Zin.
Stats
Size: Normal (initially)
Str: 9
Int: 9
Dex: 7
Stat per 4 XL: +1 random
MR per XL: 3
Aptitudes
+1 Fighting
-3 Unarmed
-2 Dodging
N/A Bows/Crossbows/Slings
+1 Air/Earth/Poison
-3 Fire/Ice/Necromancy
+1 Stealth
Design
Proteans face two major challenges: equipment randomness and hunger/hp management. While they don't really actively micromanage equipped or wielded items, they do need to consider how to balance their inventory... the fewer items they have, the weaker they generally are (as there's always a chance an armor slot is empty or an unarmed attack is made). Worse, their resistances and levels of AC/SH/EV can fluctuate dramatically at the most inopportune times.
Food for the ravenous protean is frequently a concern too. Even powerful caster proteans will need to occasionally attack tinier creatures to feed if they don't have another source of food. The bit of healing they get from digesting does makes it useful to plan escape routes along corpse trails (or even apport them). Fortunately, engulfing is strong against tiny creatures.
Despite these weaknesses, their power can really snowball if they can maintain size and health- a gigantic protean is a monster in melee and magic alike. For the player, the challenge is balancing the bonus HP and MP from mutations and artefacts against the increasing randomness of defenses from equipment, as well as balancing that against skill development for the artefact weapons you'll want to carry.
Last note is that proteans are designed to benefit strongly from Jiyva, but be very compatible with other non-necromantic gods as well.