Iron Dwarf, the Scrollless Species (Now With Spellcasting)

[BobIsDead]

These dwarves are said to have once mined so deep that they unearthed the Iron City of Dis. The legends say that they managed to escape from the demonic hordes, collapsing the mine after them, but their bodies were tainted with demonic iron magic. Over the next several generations, their bodies started to get covered in thick, iron protrusions.

Their iron skin interferes with magic, causing them to be less effective as spellcasters and completely unable to utilise scrolls. However, it also has its upsides. They have a multitiude of defences, including a high resilience to magical effects. They have a high resistance to magic, take less damage from enemy spells, are less adversely affected by miscast effects, and are able to short out the binding nature of cursed equipment.

Additionally, their inability to use scrolls and difficulty with spellcasting has caused them to master alternate means of accessing magic. As such, they are highly skilled at evocations. On top of that, they are able to get the maximum use out of a wand, even if they are not fully familiar with the wand in question.

Species Attributes

HP: +10%, MP: -10%
Base Stats: Str 12, Int 6, Dex 6
Stat Increase: +1 Str once per 5 levels.
Magic Resistance: +6 per level.

AC Bonus: Iron dwarves gain a +1 bonus to AC per 4 levels.
GDR Bonus: Iron dwarves gain a bonus to GDR. The base AC of an iron dwarf's body armour is increased by 2 for the purposes of calculating GDR.
Rot Resistance: Iron dwarves have their flesh imbued with iron magic, making them impervious to rotting.
Life Protection 1: An iron dwarf's life force is partially insulated by the iron magic within them.
Unscrolled: Iron dwarves are unable to use scrolls.
Increased Casting Difficulty: Iron dwarves find it harder to cast spells. (Permanent -Wiz of low severity.)
Spell Damage Reduction: An iron dwarf takes less damage from spells with wizard, magical or demonic flags. (Damage from such spells is reduced by 1% per XP level.)
Miscast Resistance: Iron dwarves have a natural resilience to miscast effects. (For each level of the miscast, there is a separate roll to reduce the level of the miscast by 1. Each roll has a 50% chance of succeeding. The effects of each roll stack.)
Wand Affinity: An iron dwarf doesn't waste charges when using an unidentified wand.
Cursebane: Cursed equipment loses its curse on contact with an iron dwarf's antimagical body.

Aptitudes

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Fighting: 2, Short Blades: 0, Long Blades: 0, Axes: 2, Maces & Flails: 2, Polearms: -2, Staves: -1, Slings: -1, Bows: -2, Crossbows: 1, Throwing: 0, Armour: 2, Dodging: 0, Stealth: -2, Shields: 0, Unarmed Combat: 2, Spellcasting: -1, Conjurations: 0, Hexes: -1, Charms: -1, Summonings: -3, Necromancy: -1, Translocations: -3, Transmutations: 1, Fire Magic: 0, Ice Magic: -2, Air Magic: -2, Earth Magic: 1, Poison Magic: -1, Invocations: 0, Evocations: 2, Experience: -1


Old Version

Spoiler: show

These dwarves are said to have once mined so deep that they unearthed the Iron City of Dis. The legends say that they managed to escape from the demonic hordes, collapsing the mine after them, but their bodies were tainted with demonic iron magic. Over the next several generations, they began to develop thick, iron skin.

Their iron skin interferes with magic, causing them to be able to form spells, even from scrolls. However, it also has it upsides. They have a multitiude of defences, as well as a slight imperviousness to magical effects. They have a high resistance to magic, take less damage from enemy spells, are less adversely affected by miscast effects, and are able to short out the binding nature of cursed equipment.

Additionally, their lack of ability to use scrolls or spellcasting has caused them to master alternate means of accessing magic. As such, they are highly skilled at evocations. On top of that, they are able to get the maximum use out of a wand, even if they are not fully familiar with the wand in question.


Species Attributes

High HP. High Strength. High Magic Resistance.
Low MP. Low Intelligence.
Have a natural aptitude with axes, maces, armour and evocations.

Iron Skin: Natural AC and GDR bonuses. Resistance to Rot. Life Protection 1. Electricity Resistance.
Non-Casting: Iron dwarves can't use spells or scrolls.
Wand Affinity: Iron dwarves don't waste charges when using an unidentified wand.
Spell Damage Reduction: Damage received from spells is decreased by a percentage depending on XP level.
Miscast Resistance: Iron dwarves have a chance of reducing the severity of miscast effects directed against them.
Cursebane: Cursed equipment loses its curse on contact with the Iron Dwarf's anti-magical body.


The idea here is obviously to create a species that couldn't use scrolls or spells. I saw a suggestion for such a species a while back and have been trying to cobble together an implementable idea ever since. I've been sitting on this idea for a few months but, when I saw someone else suggest another species that can't use scrolls, I decided to get up off my butt and actually post this suggestion.

The rationale behind each of the iron dwarf's species abilities is below.

A species without spellcasting needs to be strong enough to cope without it. Hence why they have high HP, Strength, Magic Resistance, and so forth. The bonus to AC and GDR adds to that, whilst also compensating for their lack of ability to use enchant armour scroll. The other resistances (rRot, rN+, rElec) are less important, are more there to stick with the flavour. However, that's resistances against three pretty nasty things that aren't always easy to find sufficient resistance to, which goes some way to making up for the whole lack of scrolls or spellcasting thing.

The affinity with wands is obviously there to compensate for their lack of ability to identify items. The immunity against curses is there for a similar reason, as any ability to remove curses is now disabled. It doesn't completely solve the whole identification thing, though. Whilst lack of curses means that trying out new equipment carries less risks, it's not completely solved. Also, potions can now only be identified via experimentation.

Spell Damage Reduction is there to increase the defensive abilities of the iron dwarf against spells. Part of this is just because they lack so many panic buttons (scrolls of blinking, teleportation, fear, fog), such defences are needed more. Another, secondary reason, is to offer a unique form of defence for a species that suffers from unique drawbacks.

Miscast Resistance is there to help protect against the miscast effects of unwielding distortion weapons, again, sort of necessary considering iron dwarves need to depend on wield ID-ing. However, it also serves as a means of protection against Hell's mystic force, mummies' death curses, as well as a small number of enemy abilities.

All in all, this is meant to come together to create a species that is able to resist a lot of harmful magic at the cost of their own magical ability. The loss of scrolls especially is a huge hindrance to any species, so all the resistances and defences are there to make sure the exchange is worth it.

Lastly, for those curious about the name, that actually came last. I tried very hard to come up with something undwarf-related. However "iron" carried the connotations of defence and lack of magial abilities well, and the term dwarf is there because of their aptitude with wands. But, honestly, this is the least important part of a species, so don't worry about it.

My main concern is that this is too niche. Cutting out scrolls and spellcasting severely limits playstyles. Also, I feel like I'm overlooking a scroll/spell effect that a species couldn't do without that the iron dwarf fails to account for. There's also the whole balancing thing which is a pretty huge deal and difficult to do well. But, if people like the idea of playing as walking spellbane, I guess it can be tweaked along the way.

EDIT: Just updated this proposal. The largest change was giving iron dwarves spellcasting. Admittedly hampered spellcasting, but still spellcasting. The reason for giving them spellcasting is to give players more options. The reason its hampered is otherwise I feel players will focus on spells to make up for their lack of scrolls. The reason it's hampered specifically in the way that it is, is so that the difficulty comes primarily from spell failure, not spell power. This means it also acts as a counterbalance to Miscast Resistance. Iron dwarves are protected from the brunt of miscast effects, but have an increased likelihood of being targeted with miscast effects.

Another change is actually giving numbers and explanations on how the mechanics behind proposed attributes would work. None of these are finalised but most of them are in the vague region of what feels right. The aptitudes are especially subject to change.

Some concerns still remain, though. Wand Affinity feels out-of-place and a little overpowered; perhaps giving it only a percentage chance of working, or allowing iron dwarves to give something up (such as a permanent point of MP) to fully identify a wand would be better. All the various resistances together might also be a bit of a problem; it'd almost be shorter to list the things that iron dwarves don't have special protection against. More generally, I suppose there's still the issue that this is a scrollless race and yet they are actually being denied very little that scrolls have to offer. Not necessarily a huge problem but still a cause for concern.

[BobIsDead]

Oh, there are also a couple more ideas that I've been going back and forth on, unsure if they'll make the cut.

Wand Recharging
Basically, I've been contemplating the idea of giving iron dwarves the ability to recharge wands, just like deep dwarves. It seems like a good idea, considering how dependent they are on wands and how they can't use a Scroll of Recharging. However, it also makes them feel a bit too much like deep dwarves in some ways.

Passive Mapping
This is pretty much the inverse of the above problem. Part of me wants to give the dwarves the passive mapping ability of deep dwarves. Partially so there's some semblance of internal consistency between dwarves, but also to make up for their inability to use the Scroll of Magic Mapping. However, I feel that it goes too far in the latter case. As though it's undermining the whole "scrollless" aspect of the species by giving them too many abilities to replace scroll effects.

Spell Damage Reduction Addendum
The Spell Damage Reduction mechanic should probably only work on spells of the magical, demonic and wizard flags. I mean, flavour-wise, it makes little sense why a dragon's breath attacks should be lessened by this when they aren't technically spells. The non-flavour reasoning is that it'd probably be too overpowered if it worked on anything, and limiting it to spells affected by the antimagic brand makes the most sense.

However, this could also be a bit confusing to non-spoiled players, which is pretty much the only reason why I didn't put it in. Of course, one could argue that it's not too spoilery, considering it works against the same enemy abilities as the afforementioned antimagic brand. But I'm still in two minds on the matter.

[dpeg]

The proposal is thought out and well written! I don't have time to go into the details, but one comment: spell-less is certainly a possible handicap, but it is in no way as strong as other (such as slow movement, or no healing). Almost every species can be won spell-less (it's a challenge for Sp and DE, but really straightforward for Mi or Tr). Therefore, you don't have to overcompensate. Also: the crucial question is if taking away spells leaves a species that's still fun -- it is certainly narrower in its potential builds.

[daggaz]

The attributes alone make me think of HO or Mi, which are quite easy to steamroll a 15 runer without ever using a single spell. I think the only real difference here is no blink or tele scrolls, though nothing is stopping you from using evocable sources of which there are eventually many. So it's basically a watered down formicide with a whole lot of melee strengths. Oh and the very unfun idea of being totally dependent on floor drops/aquirement for getting your endgame weapon and your AC up (no enchant scrolls), so basically you will be further pigeonholed into Trog or Oka (or an evocations-offensive god like Nem or Makh) unless you are just going for a challenge, at which point, why do you need a species hard coded for it like this?

Not trying to be overly critical, just my 2c.

[byrel]

The proposal is thought out and well written! I don't have time to go into the details, but one comment: spell-less is certainly a possible handicap, but it is in no way as strong as other (such as slow movement, or no healing). Almost every species can be won spell-less (it's a challenge for Sp and DE, but really straightforward for Mi or Tr). Therefore, you don't have to overcompensate. Also: the crucial question is if taking away spells leaves a species that's still fun -- it is certainly narrower in its potential builds.

It's not just spell-less; it's scrolless. That's a big deal.

[dpeg]

byrel: Yes, I know, was in a hurry, still am. I think I can put it like this: scroll-less is the more interesting addition -- it shuts out some interesting choices. Spell-less denies a huge part of the game, and I think it's harder to make a fun species that way. Note that scroll-less (only) nicely mirrors potion-less (mummies).

[byrel]

Ah. Agreed. You could replace spell-less with perma -Wiz. Even give it reasonable aptitudes for some magic so that you have difficulty casting magic, but have good spell power when casting.

[Wahaha]

Agree with daggaz, it's like playing a Formicid of Trog who can use a ring of teleportation. That's about it.

[reaver]

There is really no reason to staple "spell-less" and "scroll-less" on to the same species, particularly since we already have Trog. (I don't think a spell-less species would add much).

Here would be my implementation of a scroll-less species:

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Intrinsics:

Can't read scrolls.
New ability which identifies/un-curses a single item.

Aptitudes:

+3 everything


Alternatively implement the "items with strategic importance are a new item type" proposal before adding a scroll-less species.

[milski]

Is the total loss of scrolls really so powerful as to be worth +3 everything? Formicids already lose the most powerful parts of scrolls and an early blink, telering, or telewand leaves you with most of the benefit. You'd have to rely on artifact gear I guess?

[Pollen_Golem]

This proposal is really interesting and frankly similar/superior to bcarden's silent specter race thread.
But your idea of innate magic-suppression is strange, allowing evo but not scrolls, so I'd like to suggest an interesting and intuitive alternative:

You are DEAF-MUTE:
You cannot cast spells or read scrolls or recite.
You cannot hear anything, even if Xom makes a loud noise.
You do not hear portals, but you automatically detect each portal by having visions of a gate.
You do not notice whether a door creaks loudly when you close/open it.
You cannot shout to your allies or to get attention.
You cannot get the shoutitis mutation.
You are spiritual (high invo apt, largely to incentivize gods other than Trog/Oka/Nemelex).
You communicate with the divine by emitting a barely audible hum (forlorn mutation, for balance).
You are incapable of noticing auras of silence.
Trying to invoke a god ability while silenced has the simple result: "You fail to use your ability."

makes them feel a bit too much like deep dwarves in some ways.

That's ok, deep dwarves can be removed when the time is right and there will be only 1 true dwarf again.

[Pollen_Golem]

Every god except Sif Muna and Beogh could be worshiped by this race, even Ashenzari, if you change

Cursebane: Cursed equipment loses its curse on contact with the Iron Dwarf's anti-magical body.

to

Cursebane: You can remove cursed equipment off your body without affecting its curse status.

which changes Ash conduct entirely. Instead of wearing anything you like, but being unable to swap it, you can swap however much you want, but must rely on finding cursed equipment to get Ash benefits.

[partial]

Lets just make them immune to curses and unable to worship ash (a fair penalty for never having to deal w/ curses)

[tasonir]

This is one of my favorite race suggestions in a while. It would be somewhat pidgeon holed into melee bruiser in probably heavy armor (once you're lucky enough to find a randart that has some existing enchantment on it). Not being able to enchant your own armor would be a drawback that would lower consistency, but assuming you have the option, you'd want heavy armor when you can't cast any spells anyways.

I'd recommend not doing the optional wand recharge/magic mapping. Spell damage reduction being limited to anti-magic vulnerable spells is fine. Try to trick the devs into letting them have +1/+2 UC for 'iron fists' and I'll love you forever.

[jason0320]

Another niche race? I bet devs will love it, and since it doesn't involve EP it would stay longer than Djinn.

[BobIsDead]

@dpeg
Cheers. I think I agree with you about the species being potentially uninteresting to players, in fact that's one of my biggest problems with them. That's probably the reason behind the overpoweredness you noticed. It didn't entirely stem from me trying to compensate for lack of spellcasting. It was more me realising that iron dwarves were shaping up to have a small sack of tricks and I wanted to make sure that those tricks were good ones. So, yeah, I'm more than willing to admit the possibility that I overcompensated there.

@daggaz
No offence taken. Your criticisms are basically the source of my hesitation to post this, as it really does limit one's options. Where I disagree with you (though, this might just say more about my playstyle) is that they're limited to certain gods due to relying on floor drops. In most games of crawl, nearly all of my endgame equipment comes from floor drops. Admittedly, I think iron dwarves are more limited than I'd like in terms of gods, and are certainly pushed towards certain gods more than others. But I don't see it as being that a couple of gods make things super easy and the rest should only be picked if you're making things hard for yourself.

@Pollen_Golem
That's actually a pretty good reason for allowing Ash worshipping to still be possible. I hadn't considered that. Although, I'm a bit iffy on whether it'd be balanced at all. Also, yeah, the entire idea of innate magic-suppression is pretty weird and probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The fluff and lore mostly came about because there was no precedent to work with for something that allowed all the things I wanted whilst also denying the things that I didn't want. In retrospect, just saying that they had a speech impediment that prevented spell-based or scroll-based casting would have probably saved me a lot of effort.

@tasonir
Hah! Thanks. Yeah, as other people have pointed out they are pretty pigeonholed. I'm fine with them being seen as primarily melee bruisers, 'cos that's pretty much what I had in mind as I was putting them together, but I'm thinking that they need some spellcasting options, even if they are limited. I'm working on ideas for that. As for them being good at UC, no promises, but I don't see why that wouldn't be an option.

[Lacuenta]

So in return for going scroll (spell)less, you get a gargoyle/deep dwarf crossbreed with the best of both races and a lot of special casing?

[BobIsDead]

So, there's been several people saying that the idea of not being able to cast spells is too limiting from the perspective of enjoyability. I tend to agree with them. In fact, as I've said, it was one of my biggest concerns with this species. They are too niche. However, I also didn't want to abandon the idea that their spellcasting was in some way limited.

With that in mind, I propose that iron dwarves simply find it harder to successfully cast spells.

Increased Casting Difficulty: All spells are treated as being one level higher for the purposes of spell failure chance.

This, obviously, makes spellcasting difficult whilst still being possible. It also means that their poor spellcasting doesn't need to come from having terrible magical aptitudes. So, whilst they might struggle to cast spells, their spell power doesn't suffer similarly. It also means that there's more going on than a simple case of iron dwarves having sub-optimal stats for spellcasting.

The main downside that I can see with this is that there's not much effective difference between a species being literally unable to cast spells and them being so bad at it that few people would bother to try. I don't think the above suggestion makes all spellcasting completely outside the realm of possibility, but there's such a push towards one particular playstyle that it could still be uninteresting to most players.

However, that's probably more an issue to do with balancing than anything else. Speaking of which, I'm happy to take any further suggestions on what needs to be tweaked/altered in order to make this species more balanced and more enjoyable.

[chequers]

Why "spells are treated as being one level higher" rather than just giving them -Wiz?

[Pollen_Golem]

It also means that their poor spellcasting doesn't need to come from having terrible magical aptitudes.

It also means that there's more going on than a simple case of iron dwarves having sub-optimal stats for spellcasting.

But how is it appreciably different? A strong species that has trouble casting spells is virtually minotaur, or minotaur with innate Wild Magic, so you need a better gimmick I think.

[BobIsDead]

Why "spells are treated as being one level higher" rather than just giving them -Wiz?

Mainly because I wanted the increase in difficulty of casting spells to rise exponentially with spell level. And the simplest way to do that was to tie it in with the pre-existing mechanics relating to spell levels and casting difficulty. Admittedly, my understanding of -Wiz is pretty hazy in places and, for all I know, it does something pretty similar. So if you think -Wiz would work better, and can roughly explain the underlying mechanics behind it, feel free to let me know.

EDIT: Nevermind. Forget everything I said. I just spent a day or so messing around with -Wiz in Wizard Mode and it works a lot better than whatever it was that I had in mind previously.

[adozu]

if "no scroll" race is something people fancy why not just make a species of humaoid flightless bats.

they could be blind and see everything in antennae-vision (by having a super-acute sense of hearing), making them able, for example, to detect items on the floor but being unable to know what item it is exactly until they are next to it.

monsters would also be distinguished something like "a large, fast creature" or a "small, snoring creature" (for sleeping enemies) when outside recognition range. it would make them always aware of a large area around them (larger than LOS) but at the price of less accurate infos about it. it would probably be a very spoilery race i guess.

spellbooks might still be okay (they're magic) but scrolls would only ever register as "a piece of rolled paper" and be unusable.

give it high stealth, some earth magic, a bit of hexes and low-ish hp and you've cooked yourself an interesting spin on no-scrolls.

[byrel]

Interesting, but highly annoying in practice I suspect.

[Pollen_Golem]

spellbooks might still be okay (they're magic) but scrolls would only ever register as "a piece of rolled paper" and be unusable.

and manuals??

and what does that idea even make of Crawl? what happens to reciprocal LOS ?

[Pollen_Golem]

Deep Dwarves have an interesting enough set of apts and gimmick mutations, even if you discount Slow Healing 3 and damage shaving and wand recharging. Now, what if we took those out and gave them this other handicap? We’d still have a race with a unique design, even after it is deprived of what makes them really stand out right now.

In other words, DD is composed of two things: their healing/d-shaving mechanics, and everything else. We can isolate the latter as the basis for a new species, and the former is better removed or relegated to a God anyway.

Revamped proposal:

Ground Dwarf

• DD passive mapping but not DD rN, and average MR instead of DD MR.
• DD stats, DD hp, DD mp, DD xl gain, and DD apts except even higher invo (+5).
• You are forlorn (anti-faith to balance invo apt).
• Permanently silenced (though noisy artefacts still make noise) but can invoke still (which should be the case for actual silence too IMO).
• Passive portal detection (though you don't know what type of portal it is and whether or not it is timed).
• You can remove cursed items like it’s no big deal, while the curse is intact.
• Wand affinity: you don’t ever waste charges, because of course you can’t scroll-ID wands.

[tasonir]

Really liking the update - I agree with pretty much everything. One thing I might tweak is the -wiz penalty; don't be too afraid to give them a full rank of -wiz (equal to one rank of wild magic). They have the miscast protection, and I think they can handle the penalty. Not sure how much -wiz you were thinking of, but in the end this is a minor detail. Casters should be able to overcome this, but I see it suggesting you start melee and then have to work harder to go into casting.

[hannobal]

Why flavor it as a dwarf?
I'd like to see something less of a standard fantasy gliche just for flavor reasons (no elves, dwarves, orcs, etc).
Something more along the lines of a vine stalker.

I like the mechanics and concept though!

[Pollen_Golem]

It doesn't have to be dwarves.
It can even be mole people.

[hannobal]

Hahaha Mole People sounds great

[BobIsDead]

In other words, DD is composed of two things: their healing/d-shaving mechanics, and everything else. We can isolate the latter as the basis for a new species, and the former is better removed or relegated to a God anyway.

Wow. I've never really thought about it before but, now that you mention it, the whole no natural healing thing really does seem like something that should be a God-based ability. Probably Makhleb. I mean, it'd tie in nicely with the whole HP-from-killing thing. In fact, it'd just encourage the player to be even more genocidal. Which I think Makhleb would approve of.

Really liking the update - I agree with pretty much everything. One thing I might tweak is the -wiz penalty; don't be too afraid to give them a full rank of -wiz (equal to one rank of wild magic). They have the miscast protection, and I think they can handle the penalty. Not sure how much -wiz you were thinking of, but in the end this is a minor detail. Casters should be able to overcome this, but I see it suggesting you start melee and then have to work harder to go into casting.

I meant "low severity" in a relative sense. I had in mind that it'd be worth between one and two ranks of wild magic. But the exact value was something I decided to try and tweak later. And, yeah, I was going for that sort of feel to it. The increase to casting difficulty was meant to be a hurdle. One that can be overcome, but that can make getting into casting harder, depending on your build.

[Quazifuji]

if "no scroll" race is something people fancy why not just make a species of humaoid flightless bats.

they could be blind and see everything in antennae-vision (by having a super-acute sense of hearing), making them able, for example, to detect items on the floor but being unable to know what item it is exactly until they are next to it.

monsters would also be distinguished something like "a large, fast creature" or a "small, snoring creature" (for sleeping enemies) when outside recognition range. it would make them always aware of a large area around them (larger than LOS) but at the price of less accurate infos about it. it would probably be a very spoilery race i guess.

spellbooks might still be okay (they're magic) but scrolls would only ever register as "a piece of rolled paper" and be unusable.

give it high stealth, some earth magic, a bit of hexes and low-ish hp and you've cooked yourself an interesting spin on no-scrolls.

This idea is interesting. More importantly, I think this side gives a benefit to offset scroll-lessness that would make them unique to play. The advantages of creature detection in a massive area are actually exciting, and I thin that's what's important when designing a challenge race. The benefits you get in exchange for their downside should be exciting. In my opinion, Formicids and Octopodes are easily the best-designed challenge races in DCSS, and that's why. Their upsides are exciting. Being able to wear 8 rings or have infinite digging and wield 2-handed weapons is awesome and makes me want to play those races despite their enormous downsides.

But just "lots of great innate defenses"? Meh. Not exciting. Gargoyles and Deep Dwarves already exist, after all. If I'm gonna play a scroll-less race, I want it to have some upside that's so cool it makes me interested in playing with them despite the loss of scrolls. Something more unique than just good stats.

My one concern about the whole "blind, but sonar" idea is that being aware of a large area around you already exists with Ash.

[Pollen_Golem]

Without waiting for any development, I'd like to try wizmoding a character with permanent silence, mimicking scroll-less-ness and magic-less-ness.

Wizmode allows cursing and uncursing items with the &C command, so lack of remove curse scrolls can be bypassed in this way.

ctrl-D in wizmode lets you set a player enchantment, including silence, for any period of time. But it works like normal silence spell/scroll - large radius of silence that tapers out as the remaining duration comes closer to zero. So either another command must be used to set the radius to minimum, even at great duration (e.g. 10 million aut) or a script must be written that updates the wizmode command "set very short silence enchantment" every single turn.

I poked around with Deep Dwarves, trying to remove their unhealing and damage shaving mutations. The &] command is finicky. For example, wizmode doesn't let you mutate mummies directly, even if you 'force' the mutation. But if you change the species to human, mutate the human, and change species back to mummy, the acquired mutations are retained. With the deep dwarf, I could not remove Slow Healing mutation altogether, but I managed to curb Slow Healing 3 to Slow Healing 2. Fair enough. But then I cured it by quaffing cure mutation, restoring Slow Healing 3, and I could not use wizmode to get back to Slow Healing 2. I think. And from what I can tell, damage shaving is only displayed as a mutation, but not implemented as one, so wizmode does not even recognize it as a mutation.

One could alternatively play a minotaur with a no-scroll conduct, using wizmode only to remove curses... but that does not sound as interesting.

[Quazifuji]

One could alternatively play a minotaur with a no-scroll conduct, using wizmode only to remove curses... but that does not sound as interesting.

Well, if the goal is to see how a scroll-less species that can still uncurse things would work, it does seem like that would give a good enough idea. If a Minotaur or Gargoyle where you're not allowed to use any scrolls other than remove curse proves to be interesting to play, the race might be interesting (although you might want to add something to make it actually different from that). If it's not interesting, then either the idea as a whole won't work, or the race needs some other feature to make it interesting despite the lack of scrolls. If it's the latter, I don't think more innate defenses would fit.

[Pollen_Golem]

One could alternatively play a minotaur with a no-scroll conduct, using wizmode only to remove curses... but that does not sound as interesting.

Well, if the goal is to see how a scroll-less species that can still uncurse things would work, it does seem like that would give a good enough idea.

Yeah, and that's not particularly interesting - we seem to agree on that. Hence permanent silence and not just -scrolls. I don't really know how much being silenced will affect a character throughout the game, as it is only a tiny proportion of any game that a character stays silenced. I'm not even sure being silenced affects portal detection, spell memorization and other edge cases. But you can easily figure out all the consequences of foregoing scrolls.

You seem to imply that foregoing scrolls will make the game less interesting, so you need an interesting upside to compensate. But a race like Naga is mostly defined by its handicap, whereas its upside is a bunch of scattered advantages here and there. I think that's fine and the exact kind of mundane upside (is it extra AC? is it extra HP? is it constriction?) still affects your play.

I don't there could be a vision-less species a la adozu but a species can have one or two ranks of the nightstalker mutation and short-range telepathy, which perhaps in combination with Ash could give very precise information without using scrying.

[Kaelii]

One could alternatively play a minotaur with a no-scroll conduct, using wizmode only to remove curses... but that does not sound as interesting.

Well, if the goal is to see how a scroll-less species that can still uncurse things would work, it does seem like that would give a good enough idea.

Yeah, and that's not particularly interesting - we seem to agree on that. Hence permanent silence and not just -scrolls. I don't really know how much being silenced will affect a character throughout the game, as it is only a tiny proportion of any game that a character stays silenced. I'm not even sure being silenced affects portal detection, spell memorization and other edge cases. But you can easily figure out all the consequences of foregoing scrolls.

You seem to imply that foregoing scrolls will make the game less interesting, so you need an interesting upside to compensate. But a race like Naga is mostly defined by its handicap, whereas its upside is a bunch of scattered advantages here and there. I think that's fine and the exact kind of mundane upside (is it extra AC? is it extra HP? is it constriction?) still affects your play.

I don't there could be a vision-less species a la adozu but a species can have one or two ranks of the nightstalker mutation and short-range telepathy, which perhaps in combination with Ash could give very precise information without using scrying.

I feel scrollless species proposals keep getting sideswiped by the remove curse scroll.
Scrolls are divided into two parts, one people don't want to give up, and one people are fine giving up as part of a species.
People don't really want to give up the ability to say "NO" to amulet of inaccuracy, ring of EV -6, cursed ring of teleportation, and lol you wielded a cursed -2 dagger and now you are stuck with a terrible weapon all game sort of stuff.
I'll just make a group I'll call "QUALITY OF LIFE scrolls": Remove Curse, Identification are the big ones. Lesser extent Enchant W/A/Brand, magic mapping. They're less about WINNING the game so much as you choosing NOT to be screwed by RNG on something. Let the species HAVE some of these effects. Make them reliable, or consistent, but don't give them COMPLETELY free. Have some conduct attached to change how the species plays. Then just chuck out all ACTUAL scrolls, and maybe do some more with the species. See mummies; chucked the whole lot of potions. Gave them a way to recover from some effects otherwise only addressable via potions. Sure they also have ass aptitudes, but that's an undead thing sorta.

People are willing to give up the defensive or situational scrolls, which are pretty much everything else. Some effects can be gotten elsewhere. Or you can just have the species deal without.

And now I bring up the second part which is that the idea of sticking to your equipment seems a fairly popular one for a conduct (ashenzari piety is tied to attaching yourself to your equipment, curses forcing you to stick with bad stuff), and I happen to think it might go rather nicely with most of the QOL scroll effects as a conduct that balances against them, and might have other implications depending on how strict the punishment for changing equipment is.

In the extreme: Changing equipment destroys it (assume you can always change equipment). Putting on a terrible item is no longer a problem, but taking off your sweet loot to check out a new item is a much bigger decision, or even just swapping resist equipment because of one enemy.

[archaeo]

People are willing to give up the defensive or situational scrolls, which are pretty much everything else. Some effects can be gotten elsewhere. Or you can just have the species deal without.

The problem as I see it is that Fo already bars the use of the two most important "defensive or situational scrolls"; honestly, I think that the Fo stasis conduct currently does most of the interesting thing a scroll-less species would have.

[Quazifuji]

You seem to imply that foregoing scrolls will make the game less interesting, so you need an interesting upside to compensate. But a race like Naga is mostly defined by its handicap, whereas its upside is a bunch of scattered advantages here and there. I think that's fine and the exact kind of mundane upside (is it extra AC? is it extra HP? is it constriction?) still affects your play.

You're right that more subtle bonuses can still affect your play. But partly, I just like flashy, exciting racial bonuses. Like I said before, Octopodes being able to use 8 rings or formicids being able to use a two-handed weapon with a shield makes me think "man, that's so cool, I want to play that race" despite all the downsides I have. Nagas having good health and being able to spit poison does not have this effect. Maybe this is just me.

Anyway, even if a scroll-less species doesn't require a bonus as superficially exciting as 8 rings or 2-handers with shields, there's still a problem with the high innate defeses proposed by the OP: it's been done before. Multiple times. Deep Dwarves and Naga both have major downsides with great defenses to compensate, and Gargoyles have great innate defenses without even having much of a downside. "The combined defenses of a gargoyle and a deep dwarf but with no scrolls" doesn't do it for me because gargoyles and deep dwarves already exist and I can already play either of them with a self-imposed "no scrolls" conduct if I want to.

I feel scrollless species proposals keep getting sideswiped by the remove curse scroll.

Nothing in the discussion you quoted was really about remove curse scrolls. In fact, I even said in my post about just playing a scrolless minotaur that I think remove curse scrolls should be allowed.

Anyway, I'm in favor of moving all purely strategic consumables to a new category (enchant weapon, enchant amour, mutation, beneficial mutation, cure mutation, identify, remove curse, possibly magic mapping, maybe others I'm forgetting). This would have been a much bigger deal back when consumable destruction was a thing, but even now I think it would be nice, both because I think it makes sense and because in cases like this it would allow for the possibility of a perma-silence or otherwise scroll-less race without needing to worry about how they would get by without identification or remove curse. But this also might be a discussion for another thread.

[Pollen_Golem]

and because in cases like this it would allow for the possibility of a perma-silence or otherwise scroll-less race without needing to worry about how they would get by without identification or remove curse. But this also might be a discussion for another thread.

why this reason, though? You can have a perma-silenced or just scroll-less race without moving those strategic consumables to another category. Granting the ability to remove cursed items like nobody's business is an easy way to deal with lack of remove curse. And any race can get by without ID scrolls, by wear- and quaff- identifying everything. As for other scrolls, let players worry about how they will get by without them! We make felids/mummies worry about how to get by without armor/potions, for instance.

(quick idea: having an ability to sacrifice 1/10 of an experience level to get the effect of a scroll of identify)

[BobIsDead]

Anyway, even if a scroll-less species doesn't require a bonus as superficially exciting as 8 rings or 2-handers with shields, there's still a problem with the high innate defeses proposed by the OP: it's been done before. Multiple times. Deep Dwarves and Naga both have major downsides with great defenses to compensate, and Gargoyles have great innate defenses without even having much of a downside. "The combined defenses of a gargoyle and a deep dwarf but with no scrolls" doesn't do it for me because gargoyles and deep dwarves already exist and I can already play either of them with a self-imposed "no scrolls" conduct if I want to.

I get where you're coming from. Whilst I adore any race with defensive options, I can see that the whole "race with primarily defensive abilities" has already been done a lot before, even if they've been implemented differently. I don't think that it helps that defensive options are always easier to devise and, to an extent, balance than the quirkier benefits to certain races. I know that, when I was first thinking up the iron dwarves, defensive attributes were some of the first that came to me, and I just sort of stuck with them from there.

[Quazifuji]

I get where you're coming from. Whilst I adore any race with defensive options, I can see that the whole "race with primarily defensive abilities" has already been done a lot before, even if they've been implemented differently. I don't think that it helps that defensive options are always easier to devise and, to an extent, balance than the quirkier benefits to certain races. I know that, when I was first thinking up the iron dwarves, defensive attributes were some of the first that came to me, and I just sort of stuck with them from there.

It's not even that defensive bonuses are necessarily bad, but your original concept seems to basically just mash up a bunch of defensive bonuses front other races. A defensive bonus that's more novel and feels different from a Gargoyle or Deep Dwarf would be fine.

[Pollen_Golem]

To be fair, OP has random arcane resistance like rRot, rWasteWandCharges, miscast resistance, and spell damage reduction (I don't quite like the last 2). But agreed, defensive bonuses are easier to come up with than other bonuses. More alternatives:

• (Especially if you are actually perma-silenced in which case it can be flavored as contagious): give special ability to silence enemies when hitting them in melee, like with the Engulf status (without the damage probably). Nagas and vine stalkers are given something similar after all.
• Randomly give this species vulnerability to fire/cold/poison/magic and even further boost them defensively, e.g. give ogre level HP.

[Pollen_Golem]

ctrl-D in wizmode lets you set a player enchantment, including silence, for any period of time. But it works like normal silence spell/scroll - large radius of silence that tapers out as the remaining duration comes closer to zero.

According to wiki, Ru can inflict silence status on enemies. I never noticed that - I'm guessing it was removed at some point. Maybe it was an extremely short silence, and therefore was not a 3x3 or bigger aura, which would have been just wrong, but otherwise it must have been a special status that kept silence to a 1-tile radius, maybe even without the purple outline signifying silence. If that's correct and the name of this status can be found and applied to the player, that would be helpful.

[Siegurt]

What if the silence aura was not permanant, but generated on damage taken, so whenever you take damage, your silence enchantment/aura size increases, but when you're out of combat, you can rest it off.

This leaves the race/god/whatever open to using out of combat scrolls and spells, but not in combat ones.

[Lasty]

Ru passives / apocalypse can apply antimagic, but not silence.

[Pollen_Golem]

whenever you take damage, your silence enchantment/aura size increases

That part can be problematic if it encourages you to take damage to get your silence aura going. Unlike e.g. dith bleeding which is counter-productive to scum.

It would make more sense for you to be silenced with a constant unchanging radius whenever an enemy is in view. So most scrolls and spells would be used only in preparation for fighting, incidentally rendering most conjurations and hexes useless. The wrinkle with invisible monsters is ironed out by giving the species innate SInv.

[Siegurt]

whenever you take damage, your silence enchantment/aura size increases

That part can be problematic if it encourages you to take damage to get your silence aura going. Unlike e.g. dith bleeding which is counter-productive to scum.

It would make more sense for you to be silenced with a constant unchanging radius whenever an enemy is in view. So most scrolls and spells would be used only in preparation for fighting, incidentally rendering most conjurations and hexes useless. The wrinkle with invisible monsters is ironed out by giving the species innate SInv.

Well I had in mind more like pbp style procs where the size of your silence aura increase is proportional to the percentage of your max hps the damage does to you. That way taking damage in exchange for silence is its own cost.

[BobIsDead]

It's not even that defensive bonuses are necessarily bad, but your original concept seems to basically just mash up a bunch of defensive bonuses front other races. A defensive bonus that's more novel and feels different from a Gargoyle or Deep Dwarf would be fine.

At first I wasn't sure what you've meant but after going back and comparing iron dwarves to other races, I can see what you mean. They seem particularly similar to gargoyles, no doubt due to iron dwarves originally being imagined as having iron flesh. However, since the last major edit, I have been on the fence about some of the iron dwarf attributes. Specifically, the GDR Bonus, Rot Resistance, Life Protection. However, this was less because it's been done before, but more due to reasons of balance and design cohesion.

In fact, I almost have the opposite issue to you when it comes to other defences, such as Spell Damage Reduction and Miscast Resistance. The fact that they haven't been done before makes them feel as though they're needlessly exotic. Even if there's good reasons for them both, especially in the case of Miscast Resistance, they still come across as a little out of place.

Perhaps it ties in with what you were saying that the original concept seems like it's a bunch of other ideas mashed together. It might be that having so many aspects of the race devoted to defence just makes it feel messy. It feels like the defences need to be more streamlined, preferably without losing anything important.

[Aethrus]

I'd probably lower some of their attitudes, particularly spellcasting as the standard -1 is pretty good considering a race with anti-magic skin. Maybe even out the spell schools a little more, with spellcasting -3 or 4 and average spell school -1?

Another thought is that losing out on enchant weapon and armor scrolls is a big strategic loss. Maybe every 3 levels or so they get a use of a reforge ability that allows them to raise the enchantment of an item?