Race proposal: Dragonfly

[wisp412]

Name is subject to change, they are basically a small race that look like humanoid dragonflies or wasps. Any balance is subject to change. The main design niche for these guys should be: A small race that are good fighters, because every other small race tries to be a stabber, or an enchanter. Some people try to play Spriggans and Kobolds as Fighters and Berserkers, so these guys could fit that niche better.

Edit: The majority of whats below the ~~ line is old ideas, and I am fairly certain that they make the race too similar to Ogres, as others have pointed out. At this point I am trying to think of a good way to make a tiny, melee focused race interesting. I'd rather keep replying to one thread with new ideas for it, rather than cluttering the forum with alot of threads for different ways to make a good race. I'll update this again when, or if the idea becomes solid. I will however, point out that I posted this idea sooner than I should have because I wasn't sure if there is room tiny, melee focused race in Crawl.

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They are tiny but have an extra pair of arms like Formicid and larger hands than normal, so they can wield normal sized weapons and shields as if they were a normal sized race. They have alot of armor restrictions, but can wear gloves, cloaks and maybe hats. For flavor they could have antenna, fast flight and a Stinger Auxiliary attack. They could have innately faster attacks (10-20%), if this is too strong they could deal less damage to compensate, this is mostly for flavor and should average out. It would make them value certain weapon Brands more as well.

Stats: +Dexterity, -Strength, average Intelligence, -HP, -XP, Average MP, +EV (from size), +MR for armor slot restrictions.
Aptitudes: Weapons: +Maces, +Polearms, +Staves, +Unarmed, +Bows, -Throwing, -Short Blades. Short Blades are flavored as being awkward for their large hand pairs to wield.
Magic: +Charms, average Necromancy, +Hexes, +++Translocations, +Fire, +Air and +Poison elements. -Everything else.
Misc: -Armour, +Dodging, -Stealth (flavored as buzzing), +Shields, -Evocations, +Invocations.

The rational for these aptitudes is that they should be as good at fighting as a normal sized race, while having retaining the main perks of being small, without being another stealthy stabbing race. I avoided exact numbers, since I am not sure what values would be balanced. They should make decent casters, but feel restricted in terms of what spells they can use.

So how do these guys look? Would playing these guys be fun and unique? Or are they too similar to Spriggans or other races? The fast flying movement speed is optional for them to avoid overlap.

Edit: I wanted to clarify that I was thinking that the weapon aptitudes would be + or - 2 each, for magic -2, +1 each or +2 for translocations, and maybe fire magic. The rational is that they should be better fighters than mages or stabbers. They might have too many +magic aptitudes, so some that are + should be average instead.

[TeshiAlair]

So, the innate issue with the combination of "small and fragile but agile" and "hits things in melee" is that dodging is innately "worse" than armour due to the possibility of getting 1-shotted. The interesting about armourless races is thus how they deal with that: Ogres have high HP and can one shot things themselves, Kobolds can cast for days due to eating corpses, Spriggans are fast.

These guys remind me sort of Tengu but worse. Which is troublesome.

[Abominae]

I feel the design niche you're looking to fill is already adequately represented by Halflings.

[wisp412]

@Amoninae: I really disagree, Halflings are quite robust for a small race and their only real restriction seems to be casting and weapon choice. These guys try to fill the space for a race with some of the restrictions that a tiny race has, but without weapon restrictions.

@TeshiAlair: I tried to avoid putting too much into the initial abilities, but I think that there is space for a small (well, tiny in this case) creature with an incentive to go into melee since all of the current smaller races are incentivised to invest in stealthier skills. The reason it isn't exciting is that there isn't anything to really make up or the drawbacks, but there are alot of potential ways to make up for low HP/ AC while being melee focused. One is just to increase their damage output in melee, another could be activatable abilities to help them deal with troublesome monsters, another could be an innate escape mechanism.

Some ideas:
Curare like slowing ability, but with less damage over time. This is to give an early escape mechanism.
Draining branded Auxiliary attacks. To give their melee a buff.
Innate faster attacks. To further incentivise melee, buff Auxiliary attacks, and combo with certain brands.

Just because I can't think of a good, balanced way to make up for these guy's weaknesses, doesn't mean that there isn't room for them. Alot of the ideas I thought of seemed overpowered, and I would rather that they ended up as a challenge race, than an overpowered one.

[kuniqs]

Butterfly race! Permament confusion, but all monsters are permamently confused, too!
Figurine race! only half maxHP, but more AC than Gargoyles! Get slaying bonus for attacking monsters in a chess patterns!

[dynast]

What are its current weaknesses? i only saw low hp and bad exp gain. Being small is not a weakness. You also have to explain better what gear he can wear, since you put -armour i assume it can wear at least dragon armor, otherwise they should have no armour skill.

[Sar]

Some people try to play Spriggans and Kobolds as Fighters and Berserkers

I think you should try playing SpBe/SpFi/KoBe/KoFi. You will find them pretty strong already.

[Quazifuji]

These guys try to fill the space for a race with some of the restrictions that a tiny race has, but without weapon restrictions.

What non-weapon restrictions of tiny races do you think are interesting enough to make a race that is tiny but has no weapon restrictions? The main restrictions of being tiny are limited weapon and armour choice. If you remove the weapon choice, then all that's left is limited armour, and if your goal is to make a race that can use any weapon it wants but has strong limitations on armour, we've already got ogres. Maybe your goal is "ogres, but with more versatile aptitudes and better EV, but less health and Spriggans' double ER penalty", but then the question is whether that's interesting enough to warrant its own race.

[duvessa]

You could also remove the weapon restrictions for small races - currently I know of 7 different weapon handedness levels (falchion < spear < trident < quarterstaff < triple crossbow < great sword < giant club) and the interface pretends there are only 2. Yeah, OK, it would be silly to let humans wield giant clubs, but 7 levels is ridiculous imo.

[wisp412]

What are its current weaknesses? i only saw low hp and bad exp gain. Being small is not a weakness. You also have to explain better what gear he can wear, since you put -armour i assume it can wear at least dragon armor, otherwise they should have no armour skill.

They are size tiny, so they mostly wear everything that Spriggans wear (I assume thats just robes and dragon armor), without being fast. The idea was that they got weapon aptitudes or other buffs to their melee, and end up with a tiny race that was encouraged to go into melee, and not as much into stabbing and magic. Extra armor slots is mostly debatable in terms of # of slots, since that is more for balance. I listed gloves, cloaks, and maybe hats because that made sense for lore reasons (Large Antennae can mean no hats, insects have strangely shaped heads, etcetera).

@Sar: This was inspired from playing small races in fighting roles. The goal isn't to make a tiny race thats stronger, but I always felt limited to shortblades when playing small races in a fighting role, and always felt like at least some stealth was required because of very high stealth aptitudes. This combination naturally leads to stabbing even if my goal is to end up with a small character that kills most enemies, or at least the more dangerous enemies through melee. Perhaps these guys wouldn't be different enough from Ogres after thinking about it more, but then again, Ogres almost always go for giant clubs and large rocks, and are playing suboptimally if they don't.

Edit: They really should have worse magic aptitudes than they have right now after thinking about it more.

Perhaps duvessa's idea is better.

[and into]

duvessa helpfully gathered all the different handedness info and posted it in GDD with a proposal to remove (or at least simplify) size restrictions:

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15036

Thereby freeing up this thread for discussion of tiny flying dragon(-men?) that you can play.

[wisp412]

What about giving these guys alot of melee debuffing branded attacks, while retaining the tiny aspect? So that your melee damage is likely worse than other races, but with corrosion, slowing, weakening (stat drain, can't kill), and draining brands you are likely to win in any 1 on 1 engagement if you can survive long enough.

[Sar]

I always felt limited to shortblades when playing small races in a fighting role

Both of my Spriggan wins used lajatangs; Kobolds have a good apt for Maces and Flails.

[wisp412]

Okay I've got it, a really unique idea for a tiny, melee race. What if you had a semi permanent Familiar whos level matched your own? This would make up for being squishy, by giving an extra target for enemies to attack. It would also make up for a tiny race's lack of melee damage output for not being able to the best weapons. I think that these guys could still have the 'wield larger than what they can realistically wield' thing, but thats debatable.

For specifics on the Familiar; There would be 2 or 3 different kinds, each with 2 or 3 different variant flavours once you reach level 9. Each Familiar should have its own theme, for variants there could be one that casts alot, one that tries to debuff/ hex enemies, one that berserks/ heals itself alot. Each variant should have an ability to make it stand out, not just stats. It would try to stay within 3 tiles, or so, unless you shout attack or flee, it should not be a pain to control, you shouldn't have to rely on its AI to not suck. If it dies, which is expected that it will, you are heavily drained. Once you get rid of the draining it will either come back on its own after gaining some exp/ eating something, or you can "summon" it early with an ability for more draining. Its death should feel crushing, and you should feel alot weaker if it dies, because I expect that it will be used as a glorified escape mechanism otherwise. The race itself should probably have terrible mana, and ranged (weapons and conjurations) aptitudes. They should probably get 1 +R for every resistance, or match your resistances.

For flavour/ lore; Crows, cats, badgers, wolverines (the animal), and similar small critters would make sense. They are described as being linked to you, so after fights they will go eat corpses if you stick around, thus satiating you and vice~versa, this is meant to be mildly irritating if you have a god that likes sacrifices, because they can eat raw meat at any time, even when engorged. They are mildly inspired by Familiars/ Ranger pets in DnD, so they could have pokes at that in any lore descriptions. Maybe you can give them a hat or an amulet, Felids can wear hats and I imagine they are the size of a large housecat.. If you can give them amulets, then Guardian Spirit drains your mana for them.

Does this sound interesting to play? I'm keeping this in the same thread to avoid clutter, and because it matches my main design goal of a viable, melee focused, tiny race.

[crate]

design goal of a viable, melee focused, tiny race.

Halflings are quite robust for a small race and their only real restriction seems to be casting and weapon choice

They are size tiny, so they mostly wear everything that Spriggans wear (I assume thats just robes and dragon armor)

These guys try to fill the space for a race with some of the restrictions that a tiny race has, but without weapon restrictions.

It sounds like you are trying to create ogres and just happen to somehow have mixed up what "tiny" and "large" actually do in crawl. (Tiny makes you more durable, large makes you less durable.)

[wisp412]

design goal of a viable, melee focused, tiny race.

Halflings are quite robust for a small race and their only real restriction seems to be casting and weapon choice

They are size tiny, so they mostly wear everything that Spriggans wear (I assume thats just robes and dragon armor)

These guys try to fill the space for a race with some of the restrictions that a tiny race has, but without weapon restrictions.

It sounds like you are trying to create ogres and just happen to somehow have mixed up what "tiny" and "large" actually do in crawl. (Tiny makes you more durable, large makes you less durable.)

In what way are Halflings less durable? They can use any armour as far as I can tell (maybe not Large Shields), and have +1 to the aptitude. Actually, wait, you're replying to my previous posts, which I admit are too similar to Ogres. I've refocused the idea since, 4 minutes before you replied. I don't think I'm wrong that theres space for a tiny melee focused race. Because Ogres get large HP pools, and strength to eventually wear DA, tiny races don't. And with the most recent idea for Familiars, I think that puts them into their own design niche. They feel similar because I posted the idea before thinking of a good way to make up for their disadvantages, because I wasn't sure if my design goals for the race were appropriate for Crawl.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, while early game Ogres are almost the same as a melee, slow Spriggan with different aptitudes (EV is roughly equal to 50% more hp design wise), by midgame you should have heavy DA on your Ogre, lots of large rocks and an amazing melee weapon. I think, the playstyle is different with super light DA, copious EV, a branded dagger or lajatang, and more importantly, low spell casting failure rates, casting aptitudes, and envocations. (Although this makes me want to wear heavy DA on a Chei Spriggan to see how it fairs out!)

Really, if there seriously 100% isn't space for a melee focused tiny race, regardless of what else it gets to make up for it, then I'll stop replying to this. I mostly started this to discuss ideas for the primary design goals, rather than letting it sit for a long time really thinking out the kinks and adding interesting ideas. Because if the design goals are flawed, its a waste of time, because it won't get added without major changes if the core principle of the idea is flawed. I should probably change the OP to relate that the main idea has changed come to think of it.

[crate]

There's no reason a large race must have a lot of hp.

[wisp412]

There's no reason a large race must have a lot of hp.

Are you talking about theory? I was just mentioning that the two large races get +30% HP, and the two tiny races get -30% and-40% HP, along with worse fighting aptitudes (although Trolls get -2 fighting, and Felids 0). If you want the race could be large with no HP changes, or could be a normal sized race with armour restrictions. I'm just trying to make ideas for a melee focused race with armour restrictions that fill a niche that I think is unfilled by what is currently available. I thought Familiars (the post before your previous one) were an interesting way to make up for a lack of armour, without stepping on other semi-permanent allies, or summoning.

[and into]

Being large in crawl gives you worse EV ("makes you less durable"). Being small gives you a bonus to EV, which makes you more durable. Many large species have other characteristics, such as better than average HP, but those are separate characteristics that just happen to coincide in the species currently implemented in Crawl. (Size also does other stuff with shallow water and eliminating shield penalties (assuming that hasn't been changed), but all that stuff doesn't matter as much most of the time.)

Correct me if I'm wrong but, while early game Ogres are almost the same as a melee, slow Spriggan with different aptitudes

What on earth? A "slow spriggan with different aptitudes" is another way of saying, "very dissimilar to a spriggan." Og and Sp have similar armor restrictions (which are also similar to other species), but, as you yourself point out, since Og have extremely high native strength, and Sp have very low native strength, even armor choice is not much of a point of similarity, in practice.

Really, if there seriously 100% isn't space for a melee focused tiny race

Maybe there is space for another small species in Crawl, if it has something unique to offer in terms of game play, and if that species also happens to excel in melee, then that would be fine.

But "this species is small, and also good at melee" is not a selling point, because there are already small species in DCSS that are very good at melee. I mean, even if spriggan HP scares you off from melee entirely (it shouldn't), you have kobolds and halflings, both of which are (ostensibly) "tankier," though actually weaker, than spriggan.

[wisp412]

What on earth? A "slow spriggan with different aptitudes" is another way of saying, "very dissimilar to a spriggan." Og and Sp have similar armor restrictions (which are also similar to other species), but, as you yourself point out, since Og have extremely high native strength, and Sp have very low native strength, even armor choice is not much of a point of similarity, in practice.

I was trying to point out the differences between the play styles of a tiny race and a large race, since alot of replies are saying that I am just trying to make a tiny version of Ogre, which I'm not. I'm trying to make another armour restricted race, thats good at melee, that just happens to be tiny.

Maybe there is space for another small species in Crawl, if it has something unique to offer in terms of game play, and if that species also happens to excel in melee, then that would be fine.

But "this species is small, and also good at melee" is not a selling point, because there are already small species in DCSS that are very good at melee. I mean, even if spriggan HP scares you off from melee entirely (it shouldn't), you have kobolds and halflings, both of which are (ostensibly) "tankier," though actually weaker, than spriggan.

I've given some ideas to try to make them interesting. I thought the Familiars idea was interesting, and a race with natural debuffing brands or activatables seemed interesting as well, I guess not.

I decided to leave the opening post bare in terms of ideas because I thought it would be better to brainstorm ideas, rather than trying to refine the idea before posting it, and possibly sidetrack my original goals, since I tend to focus more on the flavor of an idea, and wanted to put the mechanics first this time around (this is a very mechanics focused community afterall).

I don't know how the discussion got this sidetracked, I originally wanted to see whether my design goals were decent, and try to suggest some ways to make up for their weaknesses or more interesting afterwards. I think the general consensus has been that Spriggans, Kobolds and Halflings are good enough in a fighting role, and that adding a more melee focused race is too similar to Ogres, so there doesn't need to be a more focused tiny fighting race.

Anyways, is the Familiar idea terrible even by itself? I thought it might be an interesting take on 'permanent' allies.

[Quazifuji]

What on earth? A "slow spriggan with different aptitudes" is another way of saying, "very dissimilar to a spriggan." Og and Sp have similar armor restrictions (which are also similar to other species), but, as you yourself point out, since Og have extremely high native strength, and Sp have very low native strength, even armor choice is not much of a point of similarity, in practice.

I was trying to point out the differences between the play styles of a tiny race and a large race, since alot of replies are saying that I am just trying to make a tiny version of Ogre, which I'm not. I'm trying to make another armour restricted race, thats good at melee, that just happens to be tiny.

I think the issue here is that outside of the weapon restrictions and a base EV change, size doesn't mean much (there are armour restrictions to, but armour restrictions also exist on some medium races so I think they're a less significant feature of size than weapon restrictions are). Yes, small races tend to have low HP and be good at short blades, while large races tend to have high HP, but that's due to the design of the individual races. The only reason tiny races and large races have different playstyles is because the tiny races and large races that are in the game have different playstyles. The only part of the size that affects these radically different playstyles is the weapon restrictions, and that's the thing you're proposing we ignore.

Basically, here's the key question that I haven't seen an answer for: if you remove all of the weapon restrictions from a tiny race, what is interesting about them being tiny? Looking only at size and not the other features of the race that aren't related to size, what is the difference between a tiny race with no weapon restrictions and a large race, besides 6 EV, double ER penalties, and different shield restrictions? Because those don't seem like enough restrictions to make the race different enough from ogres to be interesting, and if you start adding other features of the race to further distinguish them from ogres, then I think those features end up being more significant than the premise of "tiny race with no weapon restrictions."

[and into]

For the "natural debuff" on attack, I imagine that would play pretty similarly to Ru. Also, there is already the anti-magic bite of VS.

As for familiars, I don't really like DS's demonic guardian, and so I expect I would dislike familiars even more, but maybe some people would be into that.

I could see an active ability that summons a familiar without a summon timer, but which drains your MP each turn (or takes gold or prevents HP regen/healing or gives you skill drain or whatever) for as long as it is around could be cool, but that seems like something that would work much better in the framework of a diety.