Ranger magic...

[TJS]

I've always liked the idea of all classes being able to use all books. Just adjust the failure rates (eg. spellcasters get a penalty to failure rate for prayers) and make a few spells ineligible for certain classes (detect monsters for non-spellcasters for example).
Warriors with high intelligence will eventually get a couple of spellpoints at higher levels. Also gives some point to wisdom for a lot of classes.

Off topic, but what is the relationship between wisdom and saving throw? I put on an amulet of Wis +6 and noticed my saving throw went from 48% to 49%. Completely useless. Is it only useful when you're going from say 99% to 100%?

[Pete Mack]

Wisdom adds saving throw points according to the table adj_wis_sav in
tables.c.
Points range from 0 to 19, with most of the points coming after WIS 18/100.

[TJS]

Wisdom adds saving throw points according to the table adj_wis_sav in
tables.c.
Points range from 0 to 19, with most of the points coming after WIS 18/100.

Just had a look at the table and if I'm reading it correctly you can have your wisdom increase from 3 to 18/40 and only get another 3% on your saving throw. This seems strange to me, is it meant to be like that?

[Derakon]

Your reading is correct. As for if it's meant to be that way, well, whoever wrote it presumably did so intentionally. It seems to be working more or less fine; basically what it means is that until stat gain, your saving throw is determined almost entirely by your race and class.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I'd argue that Rangers as a class is valid within Tolkien lore, given that there were woodsy men of Gondor (e.g. Faramir and the Ithilian guard), and maybe even the some of the more outdoorsy, hunting hobbits (plus some of the elves). Also, the fact that most late third-age Dunedain were rangers was not because Dunedain = ranger, but because that just happened to be the most common job for them once they lost their major cities. The numenoreans had any number of professions available to them in the past.

Not all Dunedain were Rangers, but ALL Rangers were Dunedain. It was very specifically applied to the last remnants of the noble houses of the fallen Northern kingdoms.

Actually, I'd favor removing classes. Mage, Ranger, Rogue, and Warrior are supported by the thematic source material. Priests and Paladins aren't. Healing should be folded into the arcane spell list and those classes just removed.

Warrior and rogue are utterly generic class names and roles; they can't NOT be supported. Mage? Show me *1* mage in Tolkien, where that is the person's *class*. Gandalf and Saruman aren't mages, they're Maiar. Tolkien *very deliberately* has fundamentally NO magic as any game would recognize the term.

I do agree that cleric and paladin have *absolutely* no support in Tolkien.

But none of that is relevant. Tolkien is *pure flavor*. There's nothing anywhere in there, to give crunchy game-mechanical goodies. So, the original game stepped back to the 2nd most known referent: D&D. Heck, the whole notion of 'spellbooks' is pure D&D. That's also why we have clerics and why they work the way they do...the heal-monsters.

As far as reorganizing the spells...I'd be in favor of consolidation to a single set of books used by every caster class. I'd like to see the total number of books dropped down to something like 12...of which 9 or 10 of these are dungeon-only, AND damage-immune. Every crucial spell in the basic books available from the store, is also duplicated in the dungeon-only books, OR has an upgrade, so that at some point the basic books can be ignored. The value here is, LESS JUNK. Right now, I never pick up any basic spellbook that I can't use; they don't sell for enough to be worth carting back. With the dungeon-only books, the resale value is relatively limited just because you're getting so many high-value goodies by that point, AND because you're probably running out of any good way to spend your money. I'll accept the weight and carry back extra copies of RoS or EO, but not the one(s) I can't use...and with the later books, those rarely drop until money is irrelevant.

It also means less inventory BS; I really detest the way that you have to be a walking freaking library right now. Figure the weight is pretty obscene too...for 4 copies of each of the 4 base books, which has been pretty much my benchmark quantity, that's 48 lbs. of inventory right there. I really wouldn't care if you wanted to make the books a bit heavier, as partial rebalancing; fine, they're 5 lbs each. Beyond that I don't think there's a compelling, inherent balance issue; the basic books are available in the stores regularly, and they're dirt-cheap. Worst case is, you *might* get forced to return to town because you lost too many books (with a mage or cleric) to remain down any more without excessive risk. You *might* thereby lose out on something like a vault. You gain the tactical advantage that you know you won't lose your OoD access or your Teleport Other access. It means you can probably do without certain 'insurance' items that you might keep "just in case."

So what I'd like to see...

--3 basic books which most characters can use at some point
--7 books which comprise the root kit for all casters
--2, maybe 3 books total, which have highly specialized, expensive, high level spells. Assuming we keep the arcane/divine distinction, then 1 book would be the arcane blasters. Cloudkill might be available to any arcane caster, but Rift, Meteor Swarm, and Banishment might be Mage only. On the divine side, the specialty spells might be Enlightenment, Holy Word, Prot/Evil, Restoration, and so on.

Thus, there's only 1, maybe 2 books which would be completely useless to a caster. If the books are hard to damage, they can be made rarer; you don't need the 2nd, you need the 1st copy only.

[Atarlost]

Mage? Show me *1* mage in Tolkien, where that is the person's *class*. Gandalf and Saruman aren't mages, they're Maiar. Tolkien *very deliberately* has fundamentally NO magic as any game would recognize the term.

Hmm. Let's see. Let's start with Luthien (also exhibit A for why sleep spells should work on uniques up to and including Morgoth). She also physically blasts apart the tower on Tol-in-Gaurhoth telekinetically if you want something flashier. Then there's Finrod, who engaged in a magical duel with Sauron in the same source but with less success. And we probably shouldn't leave off the Witch-King of Angmar. Oh, and Elrond. The river horses may have been Gandalf's touch, but the basic control over the river wasn't. I'm not sure what to Beorn's call skin changing if not magic. Cirion and Eorl seems to indicate that Lothlorien has a protection similar to the girdle of Melian, which would indicate Galadriel merits the title mage as well.

There are some indications that magic is racially available to Elves and Dwarves only, but Beorn contradicts this with his self-polymorphing, as do the Exiles in Arnor, with their ability to craft weapons potent against the undead.

[ramela]

Well, there are no Horned Reapers, Quasits, Kobolds, Vecna, Tarrasque, Pazuzu or Fruit Bats in Tolkiens works either, so if someone wants to cut classes to conform to the source material, they should propably cut the non-tolkien monsters too.

That leaves maybe around 50% (wild guess/gut feeling) of the monster list intact, though most uniques are from Tolkien.

I don't think Angband is even supposed to be Tolkien based, rather something that uses pretty much any source material to create an interesting and varied environment. D&D is a very good source for both classes and monsters, IMO. Certainly better for classes than Tolkien, whose characters are too "organic" to fit into molds like character classes.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Atarlost, one has to identify a distinction between "spellcasting" and "innate spell-like abilities." While you may be right about Luthien, Beorn pretty clearly falls into the latter class.

And it's been a while...30 years perhaps...since I read Sil. I vaguely recall the Sauron/Finrod battle...but if it's like anything else, the magical aspect is, at best, *seriously* glossed over.

ramela: if we restricted to Tolkien-derived monsters only, I doubt *10%* of the current list would survive...perhaps 20% if you allow most of the basic "real world" animals. And even then, the face put onto the monsters is way more D&D:

--Giants. Certainly, Tolkien has giants. They like to play catch with boulders during thunderstorms. But, the types are completely D&D, and the titans are entirely D&D.

--Dragons. Who can forget Smaug? But every Tolkien dragon is essentially a red dragon...fire-breathing. The dragon age groups, color to breath type correlation, multi-hued dragons...all D&D.

--Trolls. Stone trolls come from the Hobbit. Forest trolls are suggested, IIRC, by Treebeard...trolls are imitation ents. Water trolls, troll priests? Water troll's D&D, and my gut feeling is that troll priest was more or less a pure Angband creation, as counterpart to the "ogre mage." Algroth and Eldrak are straight from Eddings.

--Undead. The Ringwraiths, of course. Otherwise, I generally remember some hints, but these are mostly D&D. The whole notion of liches is D&D.

[Derakon]

ramela: if we restricted to Tolkien-derived monsters only, I doubt *10%* of the current list would survive...perhaps 20% if you allow most of the basic "real world" animals.

There's 617 monsters in Vanilla, of which 102 are unique. If we assume that 80% of unique monsters are Tolkeinian, then at least 13% of the monsters in Angband are from Tolkein.

Start counting the number of non-unique monsters that are from Tolkein and this percentage goes up, but it's still not anywhere near a majority of the monster list.

[ramela]

The magical battles in Tolkien's works were propably very much inspired by Kalevala.

In other words, sustained contests of will, rather than throwing around fireball and lightning bolts.

[LostTemplar]

Btw Gandalf do throw lightnig bolts at ringwraiths.

[ramela]

Cool, where?

Which book, what page?

I guess I need to re-read LotR.

There's 617 monsters in Vanilla, of which 102 are unique. If we assume that 80% of unique monsters are Tolkeinian, then at least 13% of the monsters in Angband are from Tolkein.

Start counting the number of non-unique monsters that are from Tolkein and this percentage goes up, but it's still not anywhere near a majority of the monster list.

Hooray for ridiculously misguided gut-feelings.

Another proof that D&D is a great source of material for a roguelike game. The monster list would be pretty thin without D&D material.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Non-Tolkien uniques...

Mughash
Boldor
Lokkak
Draebor
Rogrog
Queen Ant
Vargo
Waldern
Kavlax
Medusa
Quaker
Ariel
Baphomet
the Phoenix
the Lernaean Hydra
Fundin Bluecloak (?)
Uriel
Azriel
Gabriel
the Cat Lord
Tselakus (Dreadlords are Feist)
Feagwath
Omarax
the Emperor Quyl
Pazuzu
Cantoras
the Tarrasque
Vecna

I count 28 non-Tolkien uniques, so there's about 75% Tolkien-derived uniques.

But I will say: when I wrote 10% of the monster list, I was excluding the uniques, in my head. That didn't quite manage to reach my fingers, tho.

[Derakon]

Fundin Bluecloak, if I recall correctly, is Angband's version of The Evil Iggy: a winning character in the early days of the game that was rewarded by being turned into an in-game enemy. So no, not Tolkein.

[Atarlost]

I'm pretty sure Rogrog is from Tolkien. He's famed for leading an attack on the Shire and being killed by Bandobras Took.

And even if he isn't his name appears to be derived from Sindarin for monstrous so he can be fit in with ease.

The Cat Lord can be made to fit with a name change since there's a cat lord in the early versions of Beren and Luthien.