Give Yellow Draconians an aptitude bonus or a better ability

[Tenaya]

(I don't think they're terrible; they just need help to parallel the others. Their ability to enter the Slime Pits potentially earlier than others and gain experience there is useful but doesn't seem an appropriate design compensation.)

The adult draconian colours have a generally parallel structure in that upon adulthood they gain a resistance, a breath weapon, an aptitude bonus and/or malus, and possibly an ability. When one or more of these is lacking or exceptional then there are corresponding voids in one or more of the others. The exception to this is the yellow draconian.

I propose that yellow draconians be given either a stronger ability (i.e. better than acidic saliva) or else be given an aptitude bonus.
For flavor we could look to the Slime Pits and try not to overlap with Jiyva. Perhaps a mini-swiftness, or mini-finesse ("your joints flow easily from your acidic makeup"), or even an evasion bonus to parallel the grey daconian's AC bonus.

I have constructed the table below to illustrate the deficiency in the adult yellow form. Note that most forms have 4 or even 5 plusses, the exception is the yellow draconian with only 2 plusses.

_________Apt bonus___Apt Malus____Breath__Resist___Ability
Red________++_________-____________+______+________+
White______++_________-____________+______+
Green______+_______________________+______+________+
Yellow_____________________________+_______+
Grey_______++__________-___________________+________+
Black______++__________-___________+_______+________+
Purple_____+++_____________________+________________+
Mottled____+_______________________+_______+________+
Pale_______++______________________+_______+________+

* Apt bonus (malus): indicates that the adult gets a bonus (malus) to some aptitude.
* Breath: the adult form has a breath weapon that deals damage (all but grey).
* Resist: the adult form gains a useful (i.e. rSteam is not useful) resistance.
* Ability: the adult form gains a useful ability either innately or through its breath weapon (e.g. conjure flame, fog, sticky flame, dispel magic, big wings, mephitic and unbreathing = yes; knockback and acidic saliva = no).
* "++" indicates a great or multiple bonus
* Giving appropriate credit for an aptitude malus is questionable because avoiding a skill is quite easy, but it does have character build consequences. For this reason I didn't do an algebraic sum of each row.

[dck]

Steam does damage and will kill things.
White breath does a lot of damage for free and not every breath has to be op by design like pale or just broken in how much damage it does like red.

[Tenaya]

Steam does damage and will kill things.
White breath does a lot of damage for free and not every breath has to be op by design like pale or just broken in how much damage it does like red.

Are damages associated for each breath weapon listed anywhere?
Are you saying that having rSteam is an actual benefit to the player?

[njvack]

Steam blocks line of sight which is very strong indeed.

[Tenaya]

Steam blocks line of sight which is very strong indeed.

Yes, steam breath is very strong indeed; better than scrolls of fog even, IMO. Therefore pale draconians have an ability.

[Tenaya]

Steam does damage and will kill things.
White breath does a lot of damage for free and not every breath has to be op by design like pale or just broken in how much damage it does like red.

Yes, steam does damage, therefore I gave pale draconians credit for having a breath weapon.

We could also give some colors extra credit for their breath weapon because they do more damage than the others. But I don't know how they compare in damage output.

[dck]

Your comparisons don't seem very reasonable to me and it looks like you just want to get yellow buffed because, well just because.
Indeed some colors are stronger than others, and so what? Pale is OP, Red has a ridiculously strong ability, Purple has the best resistance. Sure the others aren't that good but there's no reason for them to be, they still are draconians and still are hugely powerful.
I'd say yellow is better than black anyway.

[Tenaya]

Your comparisons don't seem very reasonable to me and it looks like you just want to get yellow buffed because, well just because.

I'm not actually making very many specific comparisons, other than to count the number of benefits each color receives. What my table intends to highlight is that there are a quantifiable number of benefits to each color and that yellow gets 2 while the others get 4 or 5. Do you disagree with my tally?

Indeed some colors are stronger than others, and so what? Pale is OP, Red has a ridiculously strong ability, Purple has the best resistance. Sure the others aren't that good but there's no reason for them to be, they still are draconians and still are hugely powerful.

Yes, draconians even without their adult improvements are powerful. But it is their adult improvements that makes them interesting, and there is one color without much of an adult improvement at all. I suppose it's a question of design aesthetics. I would propose that the various colors be near equivalent in power and appreciation. Yellow draconians play out just like a human albeit with slightly different apts; that seems like a waste of a colour.

I'd say yellow is better than black anyway.

Interesting. You would rather have {spit acid, acidid saliva, and rAcid} versus {belch lightning, permaflight, air magic +2, earth magic -2, rElec}. I would too if I was diving for Slime, but I can't think of another reason.

[dck]

Black breath is unreliable and annoyingly noisy, permaflight might as well not exist, rElec hardly comes into to play more often than rCorr (in a normal 3rune game, if you get more it becomes relevant for a whole branch) and it doesn't make annoying monsters more bearable like brown fugly things and spiny worms. +2 Air is nice but Dr have good apts overall and aren't exactly in dire need of an apt buff.
Yellow has a good auxiliar attack and a breath weapon that deals damage on par with white without being resistible.
I think they're fine and better than blacks yeah.

[crate]

i'm sorry but grey has the best resistance, not purple

[dck]

well pale is rLoS if you wanna get technical.

[Tenaya]

i'm sorry but grey has the best resistance, not purple

All of the other colors have a better resistance than purple does ...

[Tenaya]

well pale is rLoS if you wanna get technical.

No, it is an ability. It is not rLOS because it is imperfect, has a timeout, and only works in a given direction.

[Tenaya]

Black breath is unreliable and annoyingly noisy, permaflight might as well not exist, rElec hardly comes into to play more often than rCorr (in a normal 3rune game, if you get more it becomes relevant for a whole branch) and it doesn't make annoying monsters more bearable like brown fugly things and spiny worms. +2 Air is nice but Dr have good apts overall and aren't exactly in dire need of an apt buff.
Yellow has a good auxiliar attack and a breath weapon that deals damage on par with white without being resistible.
I think they're fine and better than blacks yeah.

Fine. We disagree. I like flight for swamp and shoals and various vaults; makes the UI easier. I like rElec as one less thing to worry about in Zot. As for apts, none of the +2 apts are needed; that's not the point. The point is that it opens up an opportunity for them, including tornado. Just like gaining an ice apt or fire apt was not needed on White or Red, not was it counted on at character creation; it's just a door that is opened.

But yes, rCorr is nice for ugly things. I forgot about that, but just like rElec it's just a matter of switching out a resist item.

[Tenaya]

Your comparisons don't seem very reasonable to me and it looks like you just want to get yellow buffed because, well just because.
Indeed some colors are stronger than others, and so what? Pale is OP, Red has a ridiculously strong ability, Purple has the best resistance. Sure the others aren't that good but there's no reason for them to be, they still are draconians and still are hugely powerful.
I'd say yellow is better than black anyway.

Are you saying that the problem with my premise is that the various colors are actually not as equivalent as I have presented them? My premise is that yellow is alone at the bottom; but you seem to be implying that there is a gradation from OP (your term) to still just fine as they are.

[Tenaya]

Here is my revised table:
Red: 6 {apt,apt,breath, potent breath, rF, conjure flame}
White: 6 {apt, apt, breath, potent breath, rC, knockback}
Green: 6 {apt,apt,breath, rP, mephitic cloud, stinger}
Yellow: 3 {breath, rAcid, acidic saliva}
Grey: 5 {apt, apt, non-breathing, amphibious, +5 AC}
Black: 5 {apt, apt, breath, rElec, flight}
Purple: 9 {apt, apt, apt, apt, apt, breath, potent breath, dispel, MR}
Mottled: 4 {apt, rSticky Flame, breath, sticky flame}
Pale: 6 {apt, apt, apt, breath, steam breath, rSteam}

[dck]

Can you please not reply with a dozen of posts?
I don't know how "equivalent" one to another you think or claim Dr colors are. I do know Pale is hugely overpowered and then you have a bunch (red, grey and purple) who are better than the others, and then the rest are just fine. Sure yellow and particularly black are "bad" compared to things like red and grey and purple but what do you want? For everyone to be like pale?

What change would you do to yellows that would in your opinion bring them to the "standards" of draconians?
And if it's just an apt change then that just means squat and doesn't have any real impact in how a game develops.

[Tenaya]

I don't know how "equivalent" one to another you think or claim Dr colors are. I do know Pale is hugely overpowered and then you have a bunch (red, grey and purple) who are better than the others, and then the rest are just fine. Sure yellow and particularly black are "bad" compared to things like red and grey and purple but what do you want? For everyone to be like pale?

What change would you do to yellows that would in your opinion bring them to the "standards" of draconians?
And if it's just an apt change then that just means squat and doesn't have any real impact in how a game develops.

Pale are not hugely overpowered; they are just good with a fun and useful breath weapon that can potentially stay relevant even into extended.

The "standard" if I would call it that, would be for the different colors to have about the same number of benefits weighted by the strength of those benefits. But from a gameplay perspective, it would be nice if the full spectrum of draconian colors all presented some new opportunity, whether tactical or strategic.

The specific ability would depend on how and whether it was agreed that there was any disparity to fill. You see no need for any ability. It's pointless to select an ability when there isn't even agreement on whether adding nothing is sufficient.
As for aptitudes, yes, I would at least give them an aptitude bonus to match that the others all get at least one. It doesn't even have to be overly great like purple's +2 spellcasting; it could be relatively tame like Mottled gets +1 fire.

[dck]

Free fog forever that you can even deploy in the direction you desire is indeed overpowered. It doesn't even demand training like the cloak of the thief, which at least pretends to be balanced.
Indeed, I do not see any need for an ability because they are fine in my opinion. Since you differ, that must mean you see some weakness they have compared to the other draconians, well then you should have some idea on how to change them.
A +2 to spc is just about useless for many characters since few characters want to have much to do with heavy investment in spellcasting (as in, the spellcasting skill).

[Sar]

All of the other colors have a better resistance than purple does ...

What, no, free MR is great.

[Siegurt]

I think rSteam should let you see through steam clouds, although that's a bit off topic.

[Sar]

Well, in Crawl if you have LoS to something it has LoS to you, so that would just make pale breath useless, wouldn't it?

[duvessa]

I do think it is a problem that yellow draconian's breath is so crappy. The damage is similarly terrible to purple, but 1. purple's breath is penetrating, 2. purple's breath has a slightly less terrible special effect, 3. purple has some other actual advantages to make up for it whereas yellow gets an aux attack and a useless resistance.

[Tenaya]

All of the other colors have a better resistance than purple does ...

What, no, free MR is great.

Oops. I forgot about that, yes the MR is great. I was thinking elemental pips and forgot about the incremental MR bonus.

[Siegurt]

Well, in Crawl if you have LoS to something it has LoS to you, so that would just make pale breath useless, wouldn't it?

Well, that's a technical reason that it's not implemented as one-way see through clouds, not a game design reason it *shouldn't* work this way. (Which is also not to say that there aren't valid game design reasons for it not to be a thing, just that "it doesn't work that way presently" isn't one of them.) I also don't really think there's enough strong enough arguments for it *to* be a thing that it's really worth investing any serious dev time, or forum discussion time

[skyspire]

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Well, in Crawl if you have LoS to something it has LoS to you, so that would just make pale breath useless, wouldn't it?

I guess you never played with Ash. He is not asking for LoS, he is just asking for ability to see through the steam. Even just monster detection when steam is present, would be cool. Your steam has eyes..

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Red: 6 {apt,apt,breath, potent breath, rF, conjure flame}
White: 6 {apt, apt, breath, potent breath, rC, knockback}
Green: 6 {apt,apt,breath, rP, mephitic cloud, stinger}
Yellow: 3 {breath, rAcid, acidic saliva}
Grey: 5 {apt, apt, non-breathing, amphibious, +5 AC}
Black: 5 {apt, apt, breath, rElec, flight}
Purple: 8 {apt, apt, apt, apt, apt, breath, potent breath, dispel}
Mottled: 4 {apt, rSticky Flame, breath, sticky flame}
Pale: 6 {apt, apt, apt, breath, steam breath, rSteam}

I agree and see what you are talking about Tenaya, even when people like dck cannot, apparently. You are not saying all Draconians should have as many bonuses as Purple's 8 bonuses, you are just saying that Yellow has only 3 bonuses, when all other Draconians get 4-8 bonuses. One negative thing about Yellow's breath, is that when you are corroding the weapons and armour of who you are attacking, you are making their non-artifact equipment less useable as an upgrade. So it can be argued that Yellow's breath is actually not good at all if the mob you are facing has equipment that you want.

To buff Yellow, there are some options like .. Conservation .. your acidic nature protects your inventory .. or rMut - You are less likely to mutate because of your acidic blood (this might be too OP).. Or EV+ 4, your acidic skin repels touch. Just one of these choices would be enough to bring the color on par with others. Or, you are immune to acidic damage.. so even standing adjacent to a wall in slime won't harm you. Or, there is a chance that encountered slimes are neutral toward you. These are all possible benefits.. just one of which would give Yellow Draconians 4 bonuses, on par with the other colors.

EDIT, I just checked the wiki and the wiki is wrong when it says Yellow Draconians don't have rCorr

[nicolae]

What about just ditching the acid theme entirely?

[skyspire]

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rElec hardly comes into to play more often than rCorr

According to the wiki, yellow draconians do not have rCorr

[dck]

How about you play the fucking game instead of reading the wiki.

[pratamawirya]

We could give yellow dracs a passive ability a la spiny mutation: when you get hit in melee, your attacker suffers some acid damage.

What about just ditching the acid theme entirely?

here we go

[skyspire]

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How about you play the fucking game instead of reading the wiki.

Did someone pee into your cornflakes this morning? How about you listen to your mother and wash your mouth out with soap?


This is a quote posted recently in Dungeon Crawling advice:

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Yellow... ugh. I often consider resetting when I get this, but I don't on principle. Resisting acid damage without protecting your gear is just insulting. Their breath isn't bad, but it can often ruin gear you might otherwise want to scavenge.

And yes, he plays Draconians often and is the one who started the thread over there.

Oh and dck, you never read the wiki? It is very helpful, especially when facing uniques. It helped me get my first 10 rune win the other week on webtiles.

[Sar]

He is right and you are wrong:

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15cafad | elliptic | 2012-04-20 15:55:46 -0400

Make rAcid and rCorr equivalent.
They already nearly always appeared together (only yellow scales were an
exception) and there wasn't much use for rAcid++(+). With the recent change to
not display rAcid in the % screen, there wasn't even a way for players to know
that amulet of corrosion + cloak of preservation stacked.

Now rCorr is equivalent to rAcid+ and rAcid++(+) doesn't exist (for players).
Yellow scales now give rCorr at the third level of the mutation. (If a
justification for scales protecting equipment from acid is needed, let's say
that they drip protective acid onto your equipment.)

Edit: go here and Ctrl+f "racid".

[dck]

I doubt he plays as many Dr as he says because then he'd know yellow Dr got rCorr instead of their weird rAcid months ago.
The badwiki is bad and awful.

[pratamawirya]

Yeah skyspire, you need to read the wiki less and the knowledge bots more:

A form of draconians that can spit acid (which corrodes armour or causes bleeding). Player character gets no unique aptitudes. Gains rCorr at XL 7. Gets an acidic bite at XL 14.

But yeah, random swear words ain't cool.

[skyspire]

So the wiki is wrong and the other poster is wrong. No need for dck to be unfriendly about it.

[Tenaya]

Free fog forever that you can even deploy in the direction you desire is indeed overpowered. It doesn't even demand training like the cloak of the thief, which at least pretends to be balanced.
Indeed, I do not see any need for an ability because they are fine in my opinion. Since you differ, that must mean you see some weakness they have compared to the other draconians, well then you should have some idea on how to change them.
A +2 to spc is just about useless for many characters since few characters want to have much to do with heavy investment in spellcasting (as in, the spellcasting skill).

Can you provide any evidence that steam breath is overpowered? You like it, fine, I get that, but can you actually support your claim? I mean, hey, if it's so over-powered, why are you wasting your time here; or have you already posted it to Mantis?

Your claim that +2 spellcasting is just about useless for many characters surprised me. Does anyone else support this claim? If so, I have something to learn. All this time I've been using spellcasting, but maybe I was wasting my experience.

[Sar]

+2 Spc is not very good for a lot of characters, yes. Free MR is great for pretty much anyone though, so purple dracs are still good.
Steam breath is pretty OP because it's kinda like free fog and fog is pretty OP.

[dck]

The amount of spc most characters should ever get is low enough that it doesn't matter much that you have a nice aptitude for it. It's not bad, but hardly the selling point of purple Dr.
I also do believe it's a bit silly this way of quantifying the benefits each color has as if they were completely comparable.

[Kate]

Well I was going to split out all the "which draconian is best" discussion and leave behind any actual discussion of potential changes to yellow draconians but it turns out there isn't any of that. Feel free to carry on here.