Fighting HP idea

[Jeremiah]

I know the whole subject of HP from fighting was massively discussed in an earlier thread (and presumably on IRC) and this lead to the current system being implemented.

One of the things that came up was that the reason why fighting should affect HP is that "fighter" type characters should be physically tougher than spellcasters. However, in practise it does not work out like that as with the removal of victory dancing, a spellcaster can train fighting just as easily as a melee character.

Going back to victory dancing is not an option, so as an alternative, how about making some other skills that a "fighter" is more likely to train than a spellcaster also affect HP.

The simplest proposal would be to use the same formula as now, but instead of using fighting alone, use the average of fighting and best melee weapon skill (including unarmed.) I don't remember anything like this being discussed before, though I could have missed it.

This would make it more likely that characters who actually fight in melee would have more HP than casters, and would also be an incentive for those characters to train weapon skills beyond what is necessary to get the minimum delay.

Of course it could have downsides as well - for example, it would allow characters to get respectable HP without ever training fighting which could have a big effect on balance. It might be possible to solve this by making a more complicated formula, perhaps including other skills - maybe armour, secondary melee weapons or shields, or alternatively maybe using the lowest of fighting and weapon skill instead of the average.

[rebthor]

I'm not sure this will work. In my experience, even casters will usually train a weapon skill up to hit min delay or close to it. If you make it part of the HP calculation they'll just do it earlier.

[jejorda2]

What if spellcasting skill reduced HP? Or even better in my mind, what if we removed fighting, spellcasting, stealth, and (maybe) dodging skills, and let stats determine hp and everything those skills influence?

There'd need to be some adjustment to account for the extra experience this would free up.

This might be enough to make strength and dex vs. intelligence an interesting choice. It might be tough to get enough of the stats early on, or too easy to get too much in the end, though.

[ebarrett]

Casters putting exp into fighting aren't putting exp into stuff that kills stuff. That's all the balance needed, really - good casting races often have subpar to lousy fighting aptitude and already get less HP from fighting as of some relatively recent change.

Anything else at the very least threatens derailing into crazy mechanics for crazy mechanics' sake, and honestly, "spellcasting skill reduces HP" is classic badforum, sorry if I can't make constructive countercriticism here but it's just that terrible of a suggestion.

[KoboldLord]

hit points for weapon skill
This has come up before, and in fact other versions have gone as far as to remove fighting completely. That version divided the hit point bonus among all martial skills. A majority of the devteam seems to like the concept of the two superskills fighting and spellcasting, though, so it didn't really go anywhere. One objection raised against it was that it encouraged dabbling in cheap levels of skills that you didn't really plan to use.

spellcasting reduces hit points
Unfortunately, this one aggravates the problem of overtraining skills. Currently training a skill farther than it is useful (for instance, training translocations early on past the point where Blink is at excellent) penalizes you only because you can't then apply the wasted experience to a more useful skill. If training spell skills costs hit points, then training translocations past the bare minimum you need not only prevents you from training something useful, it actively hurts you in a way that you can never heal or fix. Making it possible to overtrain skills is bad because it forces the player to micromanage the skill system to be optimal, which means you have to constantly check the number-heavy skill screen when you're supposed to be playing the game. In the worst case, you're close to your target, which means you have to check your skills and reset allocation of experience after every single monster you kill.

[dpeg]

In the old thread, I suggested (for brainstorming) two ideas:

Remove Fighting and use total xp spent in weapon and ranged skills. This draws on the idea that a fighter has more xp to spend, so they won't be hurt by training a secondary (or tertiary or ...) skill as much as casters. There are still drawbacks to this: for example, I don't think we want any caster to pick up two or three levels in axes, clubs etc. -- the formula would need to be clever enough.
I could see thinking about this idea again when/if the old idea of top tier weapons befitting from a secondary weapon skill is (re)considered.

Dispense with Fighting and use stats to determine maxHP: a point of Str gives the full effect, a point of Dex gives half effect and Int gives nothing for HP. This has the disadvantage that stats are volatile, in contrast with skills.

I haven't seen the idea of Spellcasting reducing maxHP but I don't think it's a good one: we don't want skills to punish you.

Ultimately, galehar did the work on the HP change and very much rightfully he opted to go with a simple modification.

[evilmike]

Casters putting exp into fighting aren't putting exp into stuff that kills stuff. That's all the balance needed, really - good casting races often have subpar to lousy fighting aptitude and already get less HP from fighting as of some relatively recent change.

Anything else at the very least threatens derailing into crazy mechanics for crazy mechanics' sake, and honestly, "spellcasting skill reduces HP" is classic badforum, sorry if I can't make constructive countercriticism here but it's just that terrible of a suggestion.

I completely agree with this.

Training fighting on a caster (with no other melee) is getting you extra HP but also losing out on other skills (which can be more helpful).

On the other hand, training fighting + a melee skill on a caster is a pretty good idea!

[defen]

The change should be tied to character classes. Give a better hp progression or fighting aptitude to fighters (holding species constant), and likewise for mp or spellcasting apt for a wizard, with gradations for classes in between.

[evilmike]

The change should be tied to character classes. Give a better hp progression or fighting aptitude to fighters (holding species constant), and likewise for mp or spellcasting apt for a wizard, with gradations for classes in between.

This just isn't how crawl works. Classes are merely just "starting kits" in crawl - they determine your starting stats, equipment, skills, religion, and so on, but not how your character progresses (this includes your aptitudes). Fighters do actually start with more HP than most classes, but that doesn't affect the rate they gain HP. I doubt this aspect of crawl is going to change. Classes (often called backgrounds) are supposed to have a minimal effect compared to your species.

HP gain is very much tied to your species. Ogres gain much more HP than spriggans do as they progress, for example.

[greepish]

I don't think fighting's hp aspect is really a big issue. Consider the two cases:

A) You worship trog: You really only have like 5 skills to increase, sometimes 3. So you're going to have way more fighting and hp than any other character. If you look at a bunch of morgue files or your own games you find this just happens.

B) You don't worship trog: In which case you have spells anyways, so defining "caster" is kind of loose.

As for the actual OP suggestion it just can't work. Especially problematic is how do you deal with one handed fighters (demon whip/eudemon blade/sbl)? They're equally melee as a two hander, but require lower experience to reach min delay. Ironically the more defensive build would have less hp.

[roctavian]

I really like jejorda's idea for stats, as I think that could make them really meaningful -- strength for HP and carry weight, intelligence for MP and spellcasting, dexterity for stealth and dodging. I also think it is fine that stats are changeable, because plenty of tools already in the game can mitigate the negative effects (sustain/restore abilities and so on) and the effects of stat drain are often negligible.

I expect, however, there are ways that players could abuse the system to their benefit that I'm not even considering. Also it would be really too weird to have AC tied to a skill but EV tied to a stat.

[theclam]

If you make a different skill than Fighting increase HP, then casters are just going to increase that skill instead.

All characters should have a fundamental choice between putting exp into killing things and putting exp into survivability. The current system accomplishes that quite well, I think. Spellcasters still train Fighting, but they get less benefit from it (since they aren't using its attack bonus). Casters also have less spare exp to spend on the defensive skills, so they are still going to have less effective health.

That being said, I do like the idea of having Str affect health and Dex having more of an effect on dodging. Right now, choosing int on level-up is too much of a no-brainer.