Sil-Q 1.4.1 release

[wobbly]

Yeah I guess I don't have any great ideas here at the moment and there's certainly more important stuff to get right. The consumables are fine being consumable, maybe just fix the worst? The box full of blessed realms? Is there jewellery that wont work in a chest? Mixed jewels seems to make as much sense as here's where we store our blessed realm amulets. Straight off the mint. All catalogued, filed and stored in rows....

[Wiwaxia]

A minor request since you seem to be working on another release: could you add an "other" gender option to the character creation screen? (or just remove the gender field altogether, since I think it only affects the pronouns on the opening quote) It's a little thing but it matters a surprising amount, and I've been hesitant to recommend Sil or Sil-Q to nonbinary friends who I think might otherwise enjoy it because of that.

[Quirk]

A minor request since you seem to be working on another release: could you add an "other" gender option to the character creation screen? (or just remove the gender field altogether, since I think it only affects the pronouns on the opening quote) It's a little thing but it matters a surprising amount, and I've been hesitant to recommend Sil or Sil-Q to nonbinary friends who I think might otherwise enjoy it because of that.

I don't have any objection to removing the gender field. If anyone does, please speak up and give your reasons, but I think without the field we can all have the character default to the gender we assume for them in our head and nobody need be upset by it.

[Derakon]

I don't have any objection to removing the gender field. If anyone does, please speak up and give your reasons, but I think without the field we can all have the character default to the gender we assume for them in our head and nobody need be upset by it.

I agree this seems the simplest solution.

[Quirk]

Gender turned out to be more than a pain than expected - height and weight were based off it. Have fudged a solution. Commit is up.

[wobbly]

Some weirdness in Uldor's AI. In this screenshot:

http://angband.oook.cz/screen-show.php?id=4602

they are just exchanging places. After killing the archer, Uldor proceeds to just keep moving between the 2 squares rather then attacking back.

[thzfunnymzn]

Watched and read Sil for a while, beat one game of Sil 1.3, left another game of Sil-Q half-finished at 700', have another game at 850'. Remember some old discussions about Smithing builds. Had a spitball for Smithing:

Smithing a Masterpiece Greater Jewel, which, when the presented in the throne room, would incite so much greed in the foes there that they would begin fighting each other over the jewel. (See: Ungoliant fighting with Morgorth over the Silmarils). In the chaos, the Iron Crown falls off Morgoth's head, and the character can carve out a Sil and run. (Course, that leaves the question of why the Throne Room doesn't just kill the player to get the Shiny).

Reason: From what I know of my reading (I may be wrong; I have relatively little gameplay experience, little hard numerical analysis of Sil, and am late to the party), because of inability to knock off the Iron Crown, all builds, ultimately, come back to Melee, Archery, or Song, in order to accomplish the game's objective. Since it seems "Smithing builds" are an aesthetic desire of Sil, but Smithing is generally just a support skill for Melee or Archery, I figured the part of the way to accomplish that aesthetic desire would be to give the player a way to use Smithing to "knock off" the Iron Crown (knocking it off in a way that doesn't go through Melee, Archery, or Song). I figured my proposal aesthetically matched up with Tolkien's lore, hence, the suggestion.

That's it. I'll go back to lurking now.

[Jamba]

A minor request since you seem to be working on another release: could you add an "other" gender option to the character creation screen? (or just remove the gender field altogether, since I think it only affects the pronouns on the opening quote) It's a little thing but it matters a surprising amount, and I've been hesitant to recommend Sil or Sil-Q to nonbinary friends who I think might otherwise enjoy it because of that.

There is no "gender" field.

There is a "sex" field though, but I dunno why you would want that gone unless you like to roleplay as an amoeba.

[Quirk]

Smithing a Masterpiece Greater Jewel, which, when the presented in the throne room, would incite so much greed in the foes there that they would begin fighting each other over the jewel. (See: Ungoliant fighting with Morgorth over the Silmarils). In the chaos, the Iron Crown falls off Morgoth's head, and the character can carve out a Sil and run. (Course, that leaves the question of why the Throne Room doesn't just kill the player to get the Shiny).

I think my main question with this is why, if the throne room will descend into bickering and chaos to acquire a jewel, it has not already done so over the Silmarils themselves, the greatest jewels in Tolkien. I suspect the answer is that nobody else in that throne room wishes to enter into a conflict with Morgoth.

This leads me to the conclusion that entering the throne room with some fancy and desirable jewel would only lead to Morgoth ordering "take it!" and a legion of orcs, Balrogs and other fiends descending on the player.

Incidentally there is one more way to remove Morgoth's crown you haven't mentioned, which is to use a staff of slumber with sufficiently high Will. It's relatively rare that a build would have this as an only option; I'll explain.

No Melee and no Archery implies pacifist or a Stealth build. This incidentally also more or less rules out Smithing, because it required a prolonged period of making noise and attracts monsters, which pacifists have no permanent means of dealing with.

Pacifists most popularly use Lorien as their song of choice, which puts Morgoth to sleep and removes the crown. Elbereth pacifists are just about possible but very rare, and there are certain enemies such as serpents they have difficulty dealing with: they can either use Lorien or make use of high Will plus a staff of slumber - since Majesty is useful to the build high Will is plausible. Pure stealth characters with low Song are the most constrained for options.

In general though most of the major constraints on builds are imposed by the need to survive until the throne room. It is not impossible that something like this could work outside the throne room, where a jewel could be thrown as a distraction, and it certainly seems like that might work for dragons in a nearly canonical sounding way, but I suspect that it would either not be worth the smithing cost or a broken tool in the hands of an archer. It wouldn't be broken if the enemy was required to be unaware of your presence, but then the mismatch between Smithing and Stealth appears again.

[fph]

There is no "gender" field.

There is a "sex" field though, but I dunno why you would want that gone unless you like to roleplay as an amoeba.

There is also no "eye/hair/skin color" field: people are happy to leave these details to the imagination of the player roleplaying their character, without the need to write them down. It's not clear why the shape of the character's genitalia is more important, to the point of deserving an explicit mention in the character screen. Also, since it's an issue many people are sensitive to, it makes sense to leave it out.

[Destragon]

Hey, I'm still very much a newbie at Sil, so my opinions here aren't backed up by a lot of experience, but I like the game a lot so far and would like to post some suggestions anyway.

I saw that scepters are getting removed in version 1.4.2 probably because they don't have much of a purpose as weapons, but I think there might actually still be a niche for them. They could still be useful for their effects or as stat boost items for pacifists or for fighters as a replacement to a shield. Maybe they should not even count as weapons at all and be equiped straight like a shield (although hardcore pacifists might still want to combine them with one). They'd essentially be jewelry, but for a hand slot, and that's why I'd also think of moving them from the weapon smithing ability to the jewelry smithing one. That would mean that pacifist players could take up jewelry smithing to get a stat boosting scepter for their hand slot. Maybe crowns could also be swapped to the jewelry smithing ability? I don't know if that would make the ability too strong though.
I just like the idea of some wizard like character carrying a scepter of power in their off-hand, like Gandalf in the movies, to boost their song magic power.

Doesn't the Song of Staunching have a very similar effect to the removed Song of Este? Why don't you just reuse the old name then?

The description of the Puncture ability is "Whenever an enemy's armour roll exceeds your archery damage roll, the enemy armour roll is reduced to zero, and you deal the enemy three damage."
The "enemy armour roll is reduced to zero" part makes it sound like you will deal your full normal damage + 3 additional damage, but that's not what it actually does, is it? I'm assuming it's only supposed to deal the 3 damage and your actual damage roll is ignored? In that case, that part should be removed from the text.

The Accurate weapon trait lets you reroll missed attacks. I haven't been mathing in a while, so I find it a bit difficult to compare this bonus to the normal accuracy boni that weapons normally have. In an attack where your hit bonus is equal to the enemy evade bonus, this reroll increases your hit chance by about as much as a hit bonus of +5 or +6, right? Is there a particular reason why this trait uses rerolls instead of just adding +5 or so hit bonus to the weapon?

The new Hand Axe does 5d1 damage. This might just be me, but doesn't a damage stat with a high amount of dice and a low amount of sides fit better to a blunt weapon? Like the war hammer with its very similar 4d1. It means the weapon is bad for sneak attacks and gets substantially more powerful the stronger the wielder is. Sounds to me like it wouldn't have much of an edge. An axe, I think, fits better with a more even ratio of numbers. Maybe a club or mace would be better flavor for this 1lb 5d1 weapon type?
Anyway, that's just my personal interpretation.

[Quirk]

Hey, I'm still very much a newbie at Sil, so my opinions here aren't backed up by a lot of experience, but I like the game a lot so far and would like to post some suggestions anyway.

Hi Destragon! Feedback is always welcome. Thanks for chipping in.

I saw that scepters are getting removed in version 1.4.2 probably because they don't have much of a purpose as weapons, but I think there might actually still be a niche for them. They could still be useful for their effects or as stat boost items for pacifists or for fighters as a replacement to a shield.

So there are various reasons that drove me to get rid of them.
1) They barely appear in Tolkien. Gandalf has a staff, not a sceptre (though in the Hobbit it is sometimes called a wand).
2) The few times they do appear they're kingly regalia - not something that would be littering the floor at 100'. They'd possibly make sense as artefacts, but the Rod of Thu is about the only mention of a sceptre I can think of that dates from the First Age, and I decided it probably wasn't worth the effort of special casing it as I did for crowns.
3) Pacifists are a relatively rare taste, and artefacts that are only really good for pacifists are a disappointment for everyone else.
4) If I do introduce something to boost Song in the hand slot, it will probably be a harp. Harps are all over the First Age.

Doesn't the Song of Staunching have a very similar effect to the removed Song of Este? Why don't you just reuse the old name then?

Song of Staunching is in fact an actual song from Tolkien's canon

Therewith the smart he swift allayed,
while Luthien murmuring in the shade
the staunching song, what Elvish wives
long years had sung in those sad lives
of war and weapons, wove o'er him.

while Song of Este was not. While there are certain similarities, also, there are several differences: Staunching operates directly on health rather than via regeneration, it cures bleeding, it does not shorten the duration of other status effects. It felt cleaner to give it a new name and free it from old perceptions.

The description of the Puncture ability is "Whenever an enemy's armour roll exceeds your archery damage roll, the enemy armour roll is reduced to zero, and you deal the enemy three damage."
The "enemy armour roll is reduced to zero" part makes it sound like you will deal your full normal damage + 3 additional damage, but that's not what it actually does, is it? I'm assuming it's only supposed to deal the 3 damage and your actual damage roll is ignored? In that case, that part should be removed from the text.

Help with the wording would be appreciated, certainly. It doesn't say "additional damage", so I'm not sure of your reading here, but it may be close enough to need clarification. Omitting "the enemy armour roll is reduced to zero" however doesn't specify that your three damage is unblocked.

In any case your damage roll is ignored, the enemy armour roll is ignored, and you deal three damage against an ignored enemy armour roll. Perhaps "Whenever an enemy's armour roll exceeds your archery damage roll, you deal the enemy three damage through their armour"?

The Accurate weapon trait lets you reroll missed attacks. I haven't been mathing in a while, so I find it a bit difficult to compare this bonus to the normal accuracy boni that weapons normally have. In an attack where your hit bonus is equal to the enemy evade bonus, this reroll increases your hit chance by about as much as a hit bonus of +5 or +6, right? Is there a particular reason why this trait uses rerolls instead of just adding +5 or so hit bonus to the weapon?

Rerolls increase the chance of hitting while having less impact on the chance of critically hitting, so it's not quite the same as a hefty Melee bonus. Largely it's there for variety, which is always hard to come by in a game with such a tight mathematical core; rerolls have already been in Sil for a while thanks to the Sil curse, but have historically worked against the player. The new trait lets you operate the same skew in your favour when you're on the attack.

The new Hand Axe does 5d1 damage. This might just be me, but doesn't a damage stat with a high amount of dice and a low amount of sides fit better to a blunt weapon? Like the war hammer with its very similar 4d1. It means the weapon is bad for sneak attacks and gets substantially more powerful the stronger the wielder is. Sounds to me like it wouldn't have much of an edge. An axe, I think, fits better with a more even ratio of numbers. Maybe a club or mace would be better flavor for this 1lb 5d1 weapon type?
Anyway, that's just my personal interpretation.

This is not unreasonable as an interpretation. On the other side: there aren't many combinations of dice for weapons that are competitive, axes feature rather more in Tolkien than blunt weapons do, and dwarves gain from wielding axes whereas nobody gains from wielding blunt weapons.

Hand Axes don't really benefit very much from strength as 1 strength maxes out their potential, though Power helps them quite a bit. Other axes do, particularly Great Axes, which are generally too heavy to particularly benefit from sneak attacks. I'm not sure I buy that "bad for sneak attacks, more powerful with strength" necessitates a blunt weapon.

[Derakon]

Help with the wording would be appreciated, certainly. It doesn't say "additional damage", so I'm not sure of your reading here, but it may be close enough to need clarification. Omitting "the enemy armour roll is reduced to zero" however doesn't specify that your three damage is unblocked.

In any case your damage roll is ignored, the enemy armour roll is ignored, and you deal three damage against an ignored enemy armour roll. Perhaps "Whenever an enemy's armour roll exceeds your archery damage roll, you deal the enemy three damage through their armour"?

How about "whenever the enemy's armor would fully block your archery damage roll, they take a flat 3 damage instead"?

[Quirk]

How about "whenever the enemy's armor would fully block your archery damage roll, they take a flat 3 damage instead"?

I like this. It seems clear to me.

[Destragon]

Thanks for replying. Yeah, sorry, I'm not very knowledgable on expanded Tolkien lore.
I really like the idea of harps or other instruments though and hope you'll eventually actually try to get them in. They fit perfectly into the game's magic theme and are not something you'd really see in many other games. The +will +song scepter could totally work as a harp. They'd of course have to be off-hand items for the same reason as scepters and maybe they could even get a little two handed bonus if you don't have a weapon equipped? That might encourage people to drop their weapon for the bonus, but maybe that's not actually that bad of a thing.

Some sort of rework of magic staves could also be very interesting, although complicated to think about. Was the flame scepter the only item that could have the flame enchantment? Would be a shame if that effect couldn't be salvaged.

It doesn't say "additional damage", so I'm not sure of your reading here, but it may be close enough to need clarification.

"Dealing damage" to me sounds like the damage is getting applied, bypassing armor. Either way, Derakon's version seems to be unambiguous.

I still have a bunch more random suggestions, but I'll probably post about them in the new thread instead,