Races

[Antoine]

Hi all

I am considering proposing some changes to the V races to Andrew Sidwell, that hero of maintenance.

My intention is to create more differentiation between the races - giving some races a slightly different 'feel' - while not having a major impact on game balance.

What are people's thoughts on the following. I imagine many will be vetoed but some may be accepted.

1. Changes that I believe are uncontroversial:
- Giving hobbits 'ID on pickup' for mushrooms
- Giving dwarves a +2 tunneling bonus
- Going through and revising the character descriptions ("You have scabby green skin and blue hair", etc)

2. Mildly controversial:
- Giving dwarves faster pseudo-id of hard armor and shields
- Giving elves and high elves faster pseudo-id of shooters and ammo
- Making kobolds, half-trolls and half-orcs show as k, T and o respectively, instead of an @
- Allowing dwarves and gnomes to occasionally detect mineable treasure within a range of several grids

3. Quite controversial:
- Giving gnomes a much better Magic Device skill (over 20, c.f. 12 now)
- Allowing gnomes to ID rods, wands and staffs on pickup
- Splitting bows/throwing into two skills - bows, and slings/throwing. Would be equal for all classes and races, except hobbits, rogues and half-trolls would have better slings/throwing and elves and rangers would have better bows.
- Restricting hobbits from wielding super heavy melee weapons (25 lb or more), but giving them an intrinsic +1 speed to compensate
- Making half-elves much more able. Currently we have a D&D half-elf (basically a funny looking human) rather than a true Tolkien half-elf (who were exceptionally able at everything - look at Elrond). I'd like to see all their scores raised by several points and their experience modifier up to about 150.

4. Too controversial:
- Never allowing stats to rise above 18/(200 + 10X), where X is the stat racial bonus (so, for instance, a dwarf could never have Int over 18/170)

Feedback and/or more similar ideas, gratefully accepted.

A.

[Atarlost]

Hi all

I am considering proposing some changes to the V races to Andrew Sidwell, that hero of maintenance.

...

- Making kobolds, half-trolls and half-orcs show as k, T and o respectively, instead of an @

This is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. The whole point of the @ is that it isn't a monster symbol. Identifying the charachter avatar without highlight cursor enabled requires that it not look exactly like the ice troll you're fighting. Anyone who wants to die a stupid death to a failure to distinguish self from other can edit the graphics preferences, but this should never be default behavior.

[Nick]

- Giving hobbits 'ID on pickup' for mushrooms
- Giving dwarves a +2 tunneling bonus
- Going through and revising the character descriptions ("You have scabby green skin and blue hair", etc)
- Giving dwarves faster pseudo-id of hard armor and shields
- Giving elves and high elves faster pseudo-id of shooters and ammo

I see nothing wrong with these.

- Making kobolds, half-trolls and half-orcs show as k, T and o respectively, instead of an @

Posband used to do this, with the option to make it always an @; I always took that option.

- Allowing dwarves and gnomes to occasionally detect mineable treasure within a range of several grids
- Giving gnomes a much better Magic Device skill (over 20, c.f. 12 now)
- Allowing gnomes to ID rods, wands and staffs on pickup

This depends on what a gnome is. In the Tolkien universe, gnomes = high-elves...

- Splitting bows/throwing into two skills - bows, and slings/throwing. Would be equal for all classes and races, except hobbits, rogues and half-trolls would have better slings/throwing and elves and rangers would have better bows.

I quite like this one.

- Restricting hobbits from wielding super heavy melee weapons (25 lb or more), but giving them an intrinsic +1 speed to compensate

This is starting to get a bit hard to keep consistent - after all, a hobbit wearing the Full Plate Armor of Isildur also seems silly.

- Making half-elves much more able. Currently we have a D&D half-elf (basically a funny looking human) rather than a true Tolkien half-elf (who were exceptionally able at everything - look at Elrond). I'd like to see all their scores raised by several points and their experience modifier up to about 150.

If we're going to get all Tolkienian, IMHO it should be elves (except maybe high elves) that are high WIS, and dwarves should be high INT.

- Never allowing stats to rise above 18/(200 + 10X), where X is the stat racial bonus (so, for instance, a dwarf could never have Int over 18/170)

This is very similar to maximize mode, which is being (has been?) dropped because no-one played it.

[Donald Jonker]

RE: replacing @ with o,T, &c.

It works in Nethack. The key, as you said, is to highlight the player with the cursor, and probably to give the player a color that no monster has, and to make it optional.

How about some bonuses for humans? No one ever throws them a bone...

(Edit: Oh right, Z+. I forgot that Mangojuice did.)

[roustk]

- Making kobolds, half-trolls and half-orcs show as k, T and o respectively, instead of an @

This strikes me as a horrible idea. It is hard enough to pick out the player at times, without needing to find the special color T in the troll pit...

- Restricting hobbits from wielding super heavy melee weapons (25 lb or more), but giving them an intrinsic +1 speed to compensate
- Making half-elves much more able. Currently we have a D&D half-elf (basically a funny looking human) rather than a true Tolkien half-elf (who were exceptionally able at everything - look at Elrond). I'd like to see all their scores raised by several points and their experience modifier up to about 150.

How many weapons would be on the hobbit-bad list -- doesn't seem like enough to be a serious restriction. Would this be a flat-out ban, a priestly substantial penalty, or a trivial armor-too-heavy issue?

Can you make half-elves Elrond-like without making them too much like other races?

4. Too controversial:
- Never allowing stats to rise above 18/(200 + 10X), where X is the stat racial bonus (so, for instance, a dwarf could never have Int over 18/170)

Isn't this exactly what maximise (or non-maximise?) mode does?


As for the other ideas -- I have reservations about some of the auto-ID and fast pseudo things, but they are probably not too unbalancing. (Especially if I am understanding correctly that 3.1.0 now auto-IDs charges for known flavors.)

Kevin

[roustk]

This is very similar to maximize mode, which is being (has been?) dropped because no-one played it.

Really? I always play maximise mode (where you can go to 18/100 plus racial, class, and equipment bonuses), as do all of the couple-dozen ladder entries I just glanced at.

I can believe that no one plays non-maximise mode (where you can go to 18/100 plus equipment bonuses).

Re-reading Antoine's original post, I wonder if he means a new mode which is maximise mode with a maximum equipment bonus of +10?

Kevin

[Daniel Fishman]

- Making half-elves much more able. Currently we have a D&D half-elf (basically a funny looking human) rather than a true Tolkien half-elf (who were exceptionally able at everything - look at Elrond). I'd like to see all their scores raised by several points and their experience modifier up to about 150.

I remember an r.g.r.a discussion about this from a few years back, I will quote an important message from it:

>Moreover, in spite of what I said above, there are hints in LoTR that the royal
>line of Dol Amroth has some elvish in it; I have no idea where that is meant to
>come from, though.

There were only three marriages between the Edain and the Eldar. Which
means any number of Avari (non-Eldar Elves, those who never started on
the Great Journey to Aman) could have been making half-breed babies.
This would have been in areas away from the action of the Silmarillion
(and probably later in the case of the Princes of Dol Amroth), and the
Eldar wouldn't have considered Avari history that important anyway. Most
of the Elves we see even in Lord of the Rings are Eldar, although many
would be Nandor, who decided the Misty Mountains weren't worth the climb
and stayed behind.
--
R. Dan Henry

Elrond was a child of one of the three marriages mentioned above; such half-elves are very rare (and so should not an Angband race). Indeed the children of such marriages had to choose one race or the other - Elrond chose elf, Elros man. So when Arwen, Elrond's daughter, married Aragorn, Elros' descendent, that was considered one of the three Edain/Eldar marriages, even though both had both Elven and Human ancestry.

Angband half-elves are the children of Avari/Man unions, and so are rightly half way between Man and Elf; Angband Elf is either Avari or Nandor; if they were one of the races that reached Valinor then they are classed as High-Elf.

[Nick]

Really? I always play maximise mode (where you can go to 18/100 plus racial, class, and equipment bonuses), as do all of the couple-dozen ladder entries I just glanced at.

I can believe that no one plays non-maximise mode (where you can go to 18/100 plus equipment bonuses).

Quite right. I meant the exact opposite of what I posted.

[Antoine]

This is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. The whole point of the @ is that it isn't a monster symbol. Identifying the charachter avatar without highlight cursor enabled requires that it not look exactly like the ice troll you're fighting. Anyone who wants to die a stupid death to a failure to distinguish self from other can edit the graphics preferences, but this should never be default behavior.

I see that this is opposed by many.

I'll stick it in the patch as an option off by default, and Takkaria can quash it if he wants.

A.

[Antoine]

> How many weapons would be on the hobbit-bad list -- doesn't seem like enough to be a serious restriction.

Only a few of the heaviest. I meant it to be mainly cosmetic, rather than forcing a change to playstyle.

> Would this be a flat-out ban, a priestly substantial penalty, or a trivial armor-too-heavy issue?

Flat out ban.

> Can you make half-elves Elrond-like without making them too much like other races?

Plan would be to make them fall halfway between a 'high' race (Dunedain and High Elves) and everything else. Suggestions welcome.

A.

[Antoine]

Really? I always play maximise mode (where you can go to 18/100 plus racial, class, and equipment bonuses), as do all of the couple-dozen ladder entries I just glanced at.

I can believe that no one plays non-maximise mode (where you can go to 18/100 plus equipment bonuses).

Re-reading Antoine's original post, I wonder if he means a new mode which is maximise mode with a maximum equipment bonus of +10?

Kevin

Yes, that is what I mean. I imagine this particular suggestion will be vetoed though.

A.

[Antoine]

I remember an r.g.r.a discussion about this from a few years back, I will quote an important message from it:



Elrond was a child of one of the three marriages mentioned above; such half-elves are very rare (and so should not an Angband race). Indeed the children of such marriages had to choose one race or the other - Elrond chose elf, Elros man. So when Arwen, Elrond's daughter, married Aragorn, Elros' descendent, that was considered one of the three Edain/Eldar marriages, even though both had both Elven and Human ancestry.

Angband half-elves are the children of Avari/Man unions, and so are rightly half way between Man and Elf; Angband Elf is either Avari or Nandor; if they were one of the races that reached Valinor then they are classed as High-Elf.

Thanks for digging this up. Any thoughts on how half-elves should be implemented in the game?

A.

[Daniel Fishman]

Thanks for digging this up. Any thoughts on how half-elves should be implemented in the game?

A.

Since they shouldn't, IMO, be "high" half-elves like Elrond, then there are two possibilities
- as they are, an average of Human and Elf: more sturdy than an Elf, but more suited to magic than a Human. If you make them "the best of both worlds" then why play a Human or an Elf?
- not in the game at all, as unnecessary (the differences to either Elf or Human are not huge) and of uncertain canonical status (while there it is quite possible that half-elves did exist AFAIK there is only one very vague reference to it in the Tolkein canon).
I would tend towards the first option - it's not as if Gnomes are canon either, while according to the ladder at least, they are more played than normal Elves.

[Antoine]

Since they shouldn't, IMO, be "high" half-elves like Elrond, then there are two possibilities
- as they are, an average of Human and Elf: more sturdy than an Elf, but more suited to magic than a Human. If you make them "the best of both worlds" then why play a Human or an Elf?
- not in the game at all, as unnecessary (the differences to either Elf or Human are not huge) and of uncertain canonical status (while there it is quite possible that half-elves did exist AFAIK there is only one very vague reference to it in the Tolkein canon).
I would tend towards the first option - it's not as if Gnomes are canon either, while according to the ladder at least, they are more played than normal Elves.

Then I think the status quo is correct.

A.

[Zikke]

In D&D, true half elves had low charisma because they didn't fit into society, but they had heightened abilities. Just throwing that out there.