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As I imagine many of us don't have that much time to plough through threads to track what's going on I thought I'd write a summary of where things are with my new fork at present and where they're going. Long post, so I've split into spoilers.
RELEASED
[spoiler]
Throwing Mastery and Momentum are gone.
Knock Back now lives where Throwing Mastery used to. If people like it there it stays as is. If they don't I'll consider how it may be buffed.
Impale, which lets you impale through two aligned enemies at once with a polearm or greatsword, is where Momentum was. I like this. It's staying.
Smashing Blow is where Knock Back was; it helps weapons to break through armor. This isn't super exciting. If people find it useful it stays.
Whirlwind Attack is no longer restricted by walls. 50% chance of halting after each time dealing damage.
Cruel Blow and Crippling Shot have been rebalanced to connect more at lower critical levels and less at higher critical levels. More work may be needed.
Filthy rags are gone.
Strength and Song of Freedom prerequisites are gone.
On early levels monsters are a little less alert.
Forges should now appear at 100, 500 and 900 feet. Other forges may be generated as well.
Quarterstaffs are now 2d4.
Quarterstaffs of Vaulting, Warhammers of Crushing, polearms of Piercing all added. Rings of Damage are now Rings of Archery (these are an actual thing, google thumb ring). Daggers of Murder are stealthy.
Channeling now auto-identifies staves and lets you get 2x as many charges out of them.
Non-unique monsters scared from the level net you experience.
Lorien and Mastery slightly boosted (effect is about +2 Song).
Slow Poison is now Antidote, and cures you.
Blunt weapons do bonus damage against armour. Armour only absorbs 3/4 of the damage the blunt weapon deals - this is better than 25% Sharpness where the amount of damage you would do is less than the armour roll. Damage dice remain low to compensate.
Careful Shot is now replaced by Rout, aim with +5 to hit against fleeing enemies. This gives casual archers a good tool particularly in the early game, but is unlikely to be overpowered late on.
Merged Clarity, Mind over Body and Resist Fear into a new skill, Indomitable.
Moved Strength in Adversity to Mind over Body's slot and had it boost Dex as well.
New skill - Defiance - saves you from a death-blow and sets your current and max HP equal to your Will.
256-colour terminal support.
mpa-sil screen centering fix merged.
Gorged status is gone. Eating more than you can stomach only spurs your digestion to new heights (you still shouldn't eat all your food at once, but you'll manage to get that herb or potion in when full).
Artifact with Throwing Mastery replaced.
Concentration prerequisite removed.
Song of Este prerequisite removed. Song of Este boosted a little. Now sustains stats as well. This is a temporary fix until the Song tree can be more properly reworked.
Deathblades gone, two new orc uniques added.
Smithing has had a substantial reworking. Artistry is gone. You can now modify item stats simply from having Weaponsmith or Armoursmith. It's not quite as cheap as it was. Slays are cheaper, sustains are cheaper, resistances are cheaper; sharpness is more expensive. Abilities cost less experience at the lower end and more at the higher end; they're very slightly cheaper to add. There have been a lot of little tweaks, please play around and see what you think.
Expertise is the new smithing skill. It reduces your costs by half, rounding down. A lot of things that you'd otherwise only craft with a Herb of Restoration handy are now more easily available once you have the skill.
Smashing Blow is gone for something more interesting: Coup de Grace. It's now possible to satisfyingly murder enemies whose health is less than your combined strength and dexterity without any prospect of them escaping. You can use this to finish off almost dead enemies or swat a fragile evasive thing. At the moment there are no prerequisites; I rely on your feedback to let me know how much balancing it will need.
Lorekeeper and Loremaster are gone. Alchemy takes up the slack for identifying potions and herbs and staves, and tells you when things are cursed. Someone capable of enchanting items with Enchantment can tell precisely what enchantments are present on an item. Forewarned tells you all about enemy stats, and adds a hefty bonus of 1/4 your Perception to your Evasion - provided you've invested more into the former than the latter.
Skeletons are searchable. Orc skeletons will give you fairly terrible stuff which will probably still be worth considering at 50 feet. Other skeletons may do better for you.
Light levels give bonuses to perception for traps and secret doors. The worst traps (acid and false floors) are easier to disarm than before.
Horns have been overhauled. They now work like breath weapons. In particular Horns of Force behave quite differently (and IMO more usefully) than they did.
Daggers and sceptres and crowns are now more likely to have enchantments on. Longswords and bastard swords will be a little rarer early on.
Artifact rarity has been rebalanced a bit. Some non-broken artifacts have been made less rare, but artifacts are rarer in general.
Rog's hammer is in. It is suitably powerful, but is not without dangers.
Various other bugfixes are in: monster protection is applied to earthquakes, !a inscription no longer lets you spot invisible monsters, Gorthaur is back to summoning Oathwraiths.
Broken swords are out. A new artifact spear is in.
Morgoth is much tougher, and gets harder to kill as he gets more damaged.
Throne room enemies crowd you less at the start.
Morgoth's crown takes less to knock off.
Sils require three different tests, only one of which is helped by Sharpness.
When fleeing to the surface, all the stairs are upshafts and downshafts, going 100 ft at a time and there are twice as many of them.
Songs of Slaying, Sharpness, Este are all gone.
Song of Challenge makes enemies too aggressive to think straight. This means archers and scouts will close to melee range, and enemies will pile into corridors after you without waiting to flank you. Of course, making everyone who can hear you upset and aggressive probably has some downsides, but I can't think what they might be.
Song of Thresholds lets you turn every door into a Glyph of Warding. The better you sing, the better your ward. The best warding is nearly unbreakable. You also gain a bonus to Evasion when defending a threshold.
Song of Delvings slowly reveals the permanent features of the map around you, along with any creatures of stone that might be slinking through those rocky passages.
Song of Aule has more of a forge flavour, and grants resist fire.
Vengeance is a skill that replaces Defiance on the Will tree; it grants you an extra damage die when you get injured in melee. It goes away when you score a successful hit, and I'm afraid you can't stack damage dice by getting hit a lot; my testing confirmed that that got very broken very fast.
Leaping now jumps all traps except roosts and webs.
Mewlips no longer have map rot. They should still present some challenge.
Horns of Blasting damage creatures of stone.
Savefiles are broken between version and now save as 1.3.2 - this is so anyone actually killing Morgoth now has their bragging rights visible from the version.
[/spoiler]
IN THE CODE
[spoiler]
Just released.
[/spoiler]
UP NEXT
[spoiler]
Maybe get rid of -1 starting stats for Sindar and Naugrim.
Maybe add lyres, +Song off-hand items.
[/spoiler]
LONGER TERM
[spoiler]
Abilities I am looking at suspiciously: Focused Attack, Versatility, Follow-Through.
[/spoiler]
ON HOLD FOR NOW
[spoiler]
Altering Rapid Attack / Two Weapon Fighting: I want to see how other changes play out first. Particularly, Rapid Attack / Impale seems to potentially have some oomph.
[/spoiler]
RELEASED
[spoiler]
Throwing Mastery and Momentum are gone.
Knock Back now lives where Throwing Mastery used to. If people like it there it stays as is. If they don't I'll consider how it may be buffed.
Impale, which lets you impale through two aligned enemies at once with a polearm or greatsword, is where Momentum was. I like this. It's staying.
Smashing Blow is where Knock Back was; it helps weapons to break through armor. This isn't super exciting. If people find it useful it stays.
Whirlwind Attack is no longer restricted by walls. 50% chance of halting after each time dealing damage.
Cruel Blow and Crippling Shot have been rebalanced to connect more at lower critical levels and less at higher critical levels. More work may be needed.
Filthy rags are gone.
Strength and Song of Freedom prerequisites are gone.
On early levels monsters are a little less alert.
Forges should now appear at 100, 500 and 900 feet. Other forges may be generated as well.
Quarterstaffs are now 2d4.
Quarterstaffs of Vaulting, Warhammers of Crushing, polearms of Piercing all added. Rings of Damage are now Rings of Archery (these are an actual thing, google thumb ring). Daggers of Murder are stealthy.
Channeling now auto-identifies staves and lets you get 2x as many charges out of them.
Non-unique monsters scared from the level net you experience.
Lorien and Mastery slightly boosted (effect is about +2 Song).
Slow Poison is now Antidote, and cures you.
Blunt weapons do bonus damage against armour. Armour only absorbs 3/4 of the damage the blunt weapon deals - this is better than 25% Sharpness where the amount of damage you would do is less than the armour roll. Damage dice remain low to compensate.
Careful Shot is now replaced by Rout, aim with +5 to hit against fleeing enemies. This gives casual archers a good tool particularly in the early game, but is unlikely to be overpowered late on.
Merged Clarity, Mind over Body and Resist Fear into a new skill, Indomitable.
Moved Strength in Adversity to Mind over Body's slot and had it boost Dex as well.
New skill - Defiance - saves you from a death-blow and sets your current and max HP equal to your Will.
256-colour terminal support.
mpa-sil screen centering fix merged.
Gorged status is gone. Eating more than you can stomach only spurs your digestion to new heights (you still shouldn't eat all your food at once, but you'll manage to get that herb or potion in when full).
Artifact with Throwing Mastery replaced.
Concentration prerequisite removed.
Song of Este prerequisite removed. Song of Este boosted a little. Now sustains stats as well. This is a temporary fix until the Song tree can be more properly reworked.
Deathblades gone, two new orc uniques added.
Smithing has had a substantial reworking. Artistry is gone. You can now modify item stats simply from having Weaponsmith or Armoursmith. It's not quite as cheap as it was. Slays are cheaper, sustains are cheaper, resistances are cheaper; sharpness is more expensive. Abilities cost less experience at the lower end and more at the higher end; they're very slightly cheaper to add. There have been a lot of little tweaks, please play around and see what you think.
Expertise is the new smithing skill. It reduces your costs by half, rounding down. A lot of things that you'd otherwise only craft with a Herb of Restoration handy are now more easily available once you have the skill.
Smashing Blow is gone for something more interesting: Coup de Grace. It's now possible to satisfyingly murder enemies whose health is less than your combined strength and dexterity without any prospect of them escaping. You can use this to finish off almost dead enemies or swat a fragile evasive thing. At the moment there are no prerequisites; I rely on your feedback to let me know how much balancing it will need.
Lorekeeper and Loremaster are gone. Alchemy takes up the slack for identifying potions and herbs and staves, and tells you when things are cursed. Someone capable of enchanting items with Enchantment can tell precisely what enchantments are present on an item. Forewarned tells you all about enemy stats, and adds a hefty bonus of 1/4 your Perception to your Evasion - provided you've invested more into the former than the latter.
Skeletons are searchable. Orc skeletons will give you fairly terrible stuff which will probably still be worth considering at 50 feet. Other skeletons may do better for you.
Light levels give bonuses to perception for traps and secret doors. The worst traps (acid and false floors) are easier to disarm than before.
Horns have been overhauled. They now work like breath weapons. In particular Horns of Force behave quite differently (and IMO more usefully) than they did.
Daggers and sceptres and crowns are now more likely to have enchantments on. Longswords and bastard swords will be a little rarer early on.
Artifact rarity has been rebalanced a bit. Some non-broken artifacts have been made less rare, but artifacts are rarer in general.
Rog's hammer is in. It is suitably powerful, but is not without dangers.
Various other bugfixes are in: monster protection is applied to earthquakes, !a inscription no longer lets you spot invisible monsters, Gorthaur is back to summoning Oathwraiths.
Broken swords are out. A new artifact spear is in.
Morgoth is much tougher, and gets harder to kill as he gets more damaged.
Throne room enemies crowd you less at the start.
Morgoth's crown takes less to knock off.
Sils require three different tests, only one of which is helped by Sharpness.
When fleeing to the surface, all the stairs are upshafts and downshafts, going 100 ft at a time and there are twice as many of them.
Songs of Slaying, Sharpness, Este are all gone.
Song of Challenge makes enemies too aggressive to think straight. This means archers and scouts will close to melee range, and enemies will pile into corridors after you without waiting to flank you. Of course, making everyone who can hear you upset and aggressive probably has some downsides, but I can't think what they might be.
Song of Thresholds lets you turn every door into a Glyph of Warding. The better you sing, the better your ward. The best warding is nearly unbreakable. You also gain a bonus to Evasion when defending a threshold.
Song of Delvings slowly reveals the permanent features of the map around you, along with any creatures of stone that might be slinking through those rocky passages.
Song of Aule has more of a forge flavour, and grants resist fire.
Vengeance is a skill that replaces Defiance on the Will tree; it grants you an extra damage die when you get injured in melee. It goes away when you score a successful hit, and I'm afraid you can't stack damage dice by getting hit a lot; my testing confirmed that that got very broken very fast.
Leaping now jumps all traps except roosts and webs.
Mewlips no longer have map rot. They should still present some challenge.
Horns of Blasting damage creatures of stone.
Savefiles are broken between version and now save as 1.3.2 - this is so anyone actually killing Morgoth now has their bragging rights visible from the version.
[/spoiler]
IN THE CODE
[spoiler]
Just released.
[/spoiler]
UP NEXT
[spoiler]
Maybe get rid of -1 starting stats for Sindar and Naugrim.
Maybe add lyres, +Song off-hand items.
[/spoiler]
LONGER TERM
[spoiler]
Abilities I am looking at suspiciously: Focused Attack, Versatility, Follow-Through.
[/spoiler]
ON HOLD FOR NOW
[spoiler]
Altering Rapid Attack / Two Weapon Fighting: I want to see how other changes play out first. Particularly, Rapid Attack / Impale seems to potentially have some oomph.
[/spoiler]
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