Idea: New "race"

[Berendol]

[quote author=Big_Juan_Teh_Furby link=board=thinktank;num=1142112558;start=0#14 date=03/17/06 at 20:43:30]There's nothing to stop someone from making a new character, getting big, and wokking someone...[/quote]

Well, except you, and anyone else who thinks like you... for all but the exceptional player, it takes a lot of work to get big enough to beat up the level 50 who totally ganked you at 30. Schedules don't permit some people to play during your off hours, so it might not even be an option.

I'd rather play on a cooperative server, not a competitive server, myself.

[Warrior]

We've already had this discussion, bigjuan seems determined to use his accumulation of knowledge and skills to kill at will and most others consider him ...this or that - for doing it. This is status quo.

Anyway, are there anyone here who has the time, will and skill to code the "Wraith/Ghost" race IF we manage to figure out how they should be?

Unless I'm mistaken, both Berendol and Sanjuro have programming skills and several others  who read the forums do too. And there are many others with skills that probably could be put to good use.

Maybe a thing like this should be, as far as possible a finished code, for Crimson only too look over and then add, if he likes the idea.

Maybe one guy wouldn't have to code the whole thing, time is scarce for many of us and maybe if each programmer only had to spend 1/3'rd of the time it'd be a project people were more likely to give a shot.

But, I don't know how it works. If this is for technical reasons not a good idea, well, so be it.

Just trying to get this post back on track.

[Crimson]

I actually have some thoughts on this new class, some of which might be more popular than others.


Speed would start at a +20.  Very fast.  We're talking ethereal forms here, so speed is not an issue.

Grasping items would be a skill that would have to be learned.  Grabbing anything as heavy as a metal weapon or armor would be a very large challange, something you'd acquire much later as you progress.

STR would be limited (period) to about 3.  That means trying to carry anything other than scrolls would slow you way down.

Ethereal powers have a secondary effect.  Yes, you yourself can wall walk at will, but what about those very physical items you're trying to carry?  Nope.  The tradeoff here is you have to drop anything physical, or wall walking is impossible.  This obviously means keyless houses.  This restriction makes dropping to 6350 and snarfing up that pdsm is very, very hard, very slow, and now you can no longer wall walk.  Below a certain level, it's not even possible.

Wraiths would be immune to physical attack, but not breath or magic attacks.  Those nether hounds will off you quick, you have no armor, but you can pretty much ignore any monster with a physically based attack.

Animals can not see you at all.  In fact, when they do, they'd flee.  This is a two part issue.  Those hounds breath when they flee.

Wraiths can locate evil without native telepathy, they are evil, in fact, evil will fight *for* them.  The more powerful the wraith becomes, the higher level of evil that will respect them.  A very high level wraith, for insteance, might be able to have Morgoth even fight for him.

Experience is only gained when killing "good" things.  Wraiths are by definition evil.

That should be enough to stir up a bit.

[Big_Juan_Teh_Furby]

Muwhahahahahaha.

"Oh, lookit, a skull druj and an undead pit.  Let's just...walk right on over there...open the door...helloooooo my pretties!"

Excellent.

[MunkYBoY]

sounds like fun  :D

[Murdin]

I think physical immunity may be a bit excessive, especially concerning balance vs. characters. It completely disallows warriors to damage them through any conventional means and limits the other combat-based classes until they get access to decent magic. I would just have the miss chance increased and still allow for the in-wall miss chance modifier, but that's my opinion.

As far as the undead working for the Wraiths... I find that a bit too likely to be abused in many, many ways. I could understand a Dominate Undead spell, though. (My suggestion: X radius from caster effect, xp cost for casting, level-based DC for the save.) Undead Neutrality towards the Wraiths would be interesting, though.

[zeb]

Hmm... if you could code undead neutrality for wraiths, what would be stopping you from coding neutrality to any specific creature type?

So, for example, high elf mages could be neutral towards centipedes, gnome warriors could be neutral towards mushrooms, hobbit rogues could be neutral towards hounds ... In other words, each class/race combo could have a specific "affinity" towards certain criiters. (although I smell balancing issues)

Maybe this should go in its own topic...

[MunkYBoY]

well i think the res to physical attacks is fair for something that will take forever to level up. plus it will only get harder as you go down because there are more monsters that do magic and what not (i.e. gnomes summoning a crap load of hounds  ;D) idk, i think the using the undead to help you may be pushing it, but i cant be sure. maybe they just ignore you or something which would be fine i guess. well one way or another i hope we can implement another race sometime near the server reset.

[Warrior]

As everyone who's met a ghost knows, ghosts have pretty advanced mental skills, they can definitely frighten but they can also apparently move stuff around and maybe even also from a distance.

Maybe all commands to interact with or pickup an item should rather browse all items in the ghosts line of sight.

Then "r" could look like

floor: a-d, * to see, ESC) Read which scroll?

a) a Scroll of Word of Recall
b) a Scroll of Life
c) a Scroll of Teleport Level
d) a Scroll of Curse Armor


I especially like Crimsons thoughts about grasping items and wall walking. However, how many of you people have seen a naked ghost? Most are fully dressed, often in rags. Maybe ghosts should be able to equip broken weapons and filthy rags and wall walk with these?

[Big_Juan_Teh_Furby]

Ooooo..Warrior's post makes me think of something quite...I dunno...neat/evil...

What about having Wraiths use cursed-only stuff?  Boots of annoyance?  Great, lemme have those, 'cos instead of being -5, they're actually +5!  Curse armor?  Nice nice nice!

Etc.

[Domino]

Ahhh no.. that would be bad mr furby.. how many morgul weapons have you seen that are in the high -30's?  I've seen quite a lot.. to reverse those would be realy realy unbalancing!

[Berendol]

I think that's a first.

Maybe we could do that and...

Nerf morgul weapons??

[sanjuro]

There are a lot of wild ideas we could come up with for these guys... the problem is they are all very different from existing classes so they would be pretty involved to implement.

I wonder if there is a way we can come up with some enhacements for normal ghosts... if we do stuff with the wraith like allowing them to pick up scrolls but disallow wallwalking while they do so then people would wonder why normal ghosts couldn't do the same.

Talk of having neutral relations, that's a huge change... but it might open doors to things like familiars and summons.

Maybe we could make the wraith class simply a super ghost but you have to die as a normal player first... then do some sort of quest as a ghost to become a wraith.

I think we need a Wiki

[sanjuro]

Oh and yeah, I am a programmer by trade... I'm not terribly familiar with the MAngband code but I've built a few customizations for ZAngband in the past.  Nothing major but I could probably find my way around the code pretty fast.

Time is the only major problem which I'm sure Crimson knows all about.  But again, I think we need to start with some small changes, balance them early, then add to them.  We should agree on some fundamental abilities/traits/limitations.  I could run a beta server too but my IP changes from time to time.

[Warrior]

Ok, I'll try to summarize:

Wraiths should be allowed to pick any of the three main classes, Warrior, Mage and Priest.

Wraiths should, like the ghosts today, have access to the undead menu and a set of maybe 10-20 powers based on their class.

Wraiths CAN pick up items (depending on the items weight and the wraiths character level) but will not be able to wall walk if they carry around anything but certain types of equipment. At level 10 they "learn" how to pick up items up to 1 lbs, at level 20, 2 lbs etc. Their carrying capacity is based on their strength, which will usually be 3.

And as for the wraiths stats I've been doing some thinking and here are my suggestions as to what they  should be like.

To sum it up briefly, they're quite terrible, the wraith lost its body and there's not much left.

The problem is that we haven't discussed much how their attacks should work or decided if their undead powers should cost EXP or mana.

I have added the Wraith to the tables at the end of this post so everyone can see how they compare.

As for the various abilities like searching and fighting etc. I'd like some input; would a ghost be skilled or not in disarming traps? How about using a bow? I tried balancing them a little, based on the other classes so it shouldn't be a disaster.

As a class, a Wraith warrior has -8 points to their stats.
Wraith mages and priests -10 total.

If we compare it to High Elves, a High Elf Warrior would have +14, High Elf Mages +10 and High Elf Priest +16, so you do get punished quite severely for being undead in the first place.  :P

As with all other races Wraiths would also roll a 5 + 1d3 + 1d4 + 1d5 for each stat before modifiers.

So a Wraith Warrior *could* get like 5+3+4+5=17 max strength, then down 5 for being a wraith and down a further 3 for being a warrior. This adds up to being +9 strength maximum for any wraith.

A Wraith Mage could however get 17+9+5 18/130 starting intelligence.

Anyway, here is the racial modifiers for being a Wraith, plus the Wraiths max, min and avg rolls.

Wraith:
STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA
-5   +5  +5   +5    -5    -9  

Max roll for the wraith race:
12, 18/40, 18/40, 18/40, 12, 8
Min Roll:
3, 13, 13, 13, 3, 3
Avg Roll:
6, 16, 16, 16, 6, 3

And then the modifiers for each of the three classes, taken from the table at the end of the post but here also with max, min and avg rolls.

Warrior:
STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA
-3   0     +1  +6    -3     -9

Max roll:
9, 18/40, 18/50, 10/100, 9, 3
Min roll:
3, 13, 14, 18/10, 3, 3
Avg Roll:
3, 16, 17, 18/40, 3, 3

Mage:
STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA
-9   +9   +3   +5   -9     -9

Max roll:
3, 18/130, 18/70, 18/90, 3, 3
Min roll:
3, 18/40, 16, 18, 3, 3
Avg roll:
3, 18/70, 18/10, 18/30, 3, 3

Priest:
STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA
-7   +3   +7   +3   -7     -9

Max roll:
5, 18/70, 18/110, 18/70, 5, 3
Min roll:
3, 16, 18/20, 16, 3, 3
Avg roll:
3, 18/10, 18/50, 18/10, 3, 3

[pre]
 Dis = Disarming (mod by INT and DEX)
 Dev = Magic device ability (mod by INT)
 Sav = Saving throw (mod by WIS)
 Stl = Stealth adjustment
 Srh = Searching Ability
 Fos = Searching Frequency
 Thn = Fighting ability
 Thb = Bow and Throwing ability
 HD  = Max HP per level (mod by CON)
 Inf = Infravision, in tens of feet
 XP  = Experience modifier to reach next level

Warrior
                           STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA Dis Srh Stl Fos Thn Thb Sav  HD Inf   XP
Human        +5  -2  -2  +2  +2  -1   25  14  1   38  70  55  18  19  0  100%
H-Elf   +4  -1  -2  +3  +1   0   27  20  2   37  69  60  21  18  2  110%
Elf     +4   0  -1  +3   0   0   30  22  2   36  65  70  24  17  3  120%
Hobbit  +3   0  -1  +5  +4   0   40  26  5   33  60  75  36  16  4  110%
Gnome   +4   0  -2  +4  +3  -3   35  20  4   35  62  67  30  17  4  125%
Dwarf   +7  -5  -1   0  +4  -4   27  21  0   38  85  55  27  20  5  120%
H-Orc   +7  -3  -2  +2  +3  -5   22  14  0   41  82  50  15  19  3  110%
H-Troll +9  -6  -4  -2  +5  -7   20  13 -1   43  90  45  10  21  3  120%
Duned   +6   0  -1  +4  +5  +1   29  17  3   35  85  65  23  19  0  180%
Hi-Elf  +6  -1  -3  +5  +3  +4   29  17  4   34  85  80  38  19  4  180%
Wraith  -3   0  +1  +6  -3  -9   20  14  9   33  60  35  58  14  0  280%

Mage
                           STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA Dis Srh Stl Fos Thn Thb Sav  HD Inf   XP  
Human   -5  +3   0  +1  -2  +1   30  16  2   20  34  20  36  10  0  130%
H-Elf   -6  +4   0  +2  -3  +2   32  22  3   19  33  25  39   9  2  140%
Elf     -6  +5  +1  +2  -4  +2   35  24  3   18  29  35  42   8  3  150%
Hobbit  -7  +5  +1  +4   0  +2   45  28  6   15  24  40  54   7  4  140%
Gnome   -6  +5   0  +3  -1  -1   40  22  5   17  26  32  48   8  4  155%
Duned   -4  +5  +1  +3  +1  +3   34  19  4   17  49  30  41  10  0  210%
Hi-Elf  -4  +6  -1  +4  -1  +6   34  19  5   16  49  45  56  10  4  210%
Wraith  -9  +9  +3  +5  -9  -9   20  16  9   16  14  10  76   6  0  310%

Priest
                           STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA Dis Srh Stl Fos Thn Thb Sav  HD Inf   XP
Human   -1  -3  +3  -1   0  +2   25  16  2   32  48  35  30  12  0  120%
H-Elf   -2  -2  +3   0  -1  +3   27  22  3   31  47  40  33  11  2  130%
Elf     -2  -1  +4   0  -2  +3   30  24  3   30  43  50  36  10  3  140%
Gnome   -2  -1  +3  +1  +1   0   35  22  5   29  40  47  42  10  4  145%
Dwarf   +1  -6  +4  -3  +2  -1   27  23  1   32  63  35  39  13  5  140%
H-Orc   +1  -4  +3  -1  +1  -2   22  16  1   35  60  30  27  12  3  130%
H-Troll +3  -7  +1  -5  +3  -4   20  15  0   37  68  25  22  14  3  140%
Duned   +1  +2  +4  +1  +3  +4   29  19  4   29  63  45  35  12  0  200%
Hgh-Elf +1  +3  +2  +2  +1  +7   29  19  5   28  63  60  50  12  4  200%
Wraith  -7  +3  +7  +3  -7  -9   20  16  9   28  30  20  70   8  0  300% [/pre]

I've based all this on the spoilers available in the documentation/spoiler section of http://www.mangband.org
I'm sure there may be some errors in the calculations somewhere, it was all done in just a short time.