Rogue Ideas

[UglySquirrell]

So, I understand a some people see the rogue as a adventurer, and not a thief. I've always played them as a thief though. A lot, and was wondering if we could make them able to work in the shadows more. Hengband has a ninja class that sees in the dark, the spell to create light is a darkness spell instead, but the game shows tiles like there the torchlit tiles. Made enlightenment potions or items a little risky to use, because they light the level up. You could give the rogue an ac stealth and saving throw bonus, well in shadows. Maybe a hide in darkness spell. Phase door or teleport then cast darkness on landing. Using pluss light artifacts was fun too because you'd have to find a light or helm of darkness to compensate. I like the idea of dual wielding as well. Give rogues dual wield but no shield and a Max of 4 blows, limit them to light weapons but an increased chance of criticals on sleeping enemies. This would make sneaking more fun in my opinion, if you manage to sneak up and backstab a sleeping enemy, its almost dead before it gets a turn, but against awake mobs you're damage is fairly weak. Maybe you could change the spellbooks to kits, trapping kit with teleport other, pits, caltrops, sleep. Faangband, has a heat trapping system. A smoke and mirrors kit with create darkness, phase door,teleport, door creation, darkness. A poisoning kit, poison dart spell, paralyze, brand weapon with acid or poison, brand arrows with the same. Changing sleep to paralyze and letting it work on all living creatures, barring uniques, with a failure rate of course could be fun too.

Well just some thoughts, cheers.

[bulian]

Why not just play hengband?

[UglySquirrell]

I really enjoy how much work and ideas, are put into vanilla. Its a lot of fun following development and seeing, what's next.

[Jazerus]

Why not just play hengband?

The existence of variants doesn't mean that interesting ideas shouldn't be considered for vanilla as well. It seems that class differentiation has become a topic of discussion that several people are interested in, based on the level of response to the mage thread.

The darkness ideas probably are more variant material, but backstab and trap creation are pretty interesting especially if vanilla moves toward flavoured traps with more varied effects.

Edit: Just had an idea to go along with flavoured traps. What if Rogues (and only Rogues) could not only disarm traps, but pick some of them up to use against monsters? I'm thinking something along the lines of a Glyph of Warding but with effects like teleport, fire, and anything else traps can do (within reason - I wouldn't expect a rogue to be able to set up a trap door).

[Napsterbater]

Unangband has the Thief, which takes away the Rogue's magic and instead makes their stealth go up with clev. You can also pickpocket monsters instead of fighting them. It's pretty interesting.

[Zikke]

A move like "Execute" would be cool, if a Rogue is stealthed next to a non-mechanical target, this move would have a chance based on monter/char level difference to insta-kill (wouldn't work on uniques).

[Tibarius]

class differentiation

Originally posted by Jazerus
It seems that class differentiation has become a topic of discussion that several people are interested in, based on the level of response to the mage thread.

Yes, part of the fun playing a game is to learn about the different aspects of the game. Therefore i think it is no good, that priest/paladins and mages/rangers/rogues have identical spellbooks, which just differ in spell level and mana cost.

[Derakon]

Each class gets a different subset of the spells in those spellbooks, too. Your rogue is never going to cast Firebolt (let alone Meteor Strike), nor a paladin Banish Evil. This is a pretty subtle difference sometimes, but it is there.

[fizzix]

I love symmetry, and right now we don't have symmetry. I think the most promising route for new classes is something like the following.

Arcane: Full-caster = mage (as current)
Half-caster = rogue (as current)
No-spells = alchemist? (very high device skill, fights on par with rogue)

Holy: Full-caster = priest (as current)
Half-caster = paladin (as current)
No-spells = warrior (as current)

Nature: Full-caster = druid (new class)
Half-caster = ranger (needs revamping)
No-spells = archer (new class)

The no-spell classes are grouped into the respective realms for symmetry reasons and because they share characteristics. The arcane group are all good at magic devices, the holy group are melee-centric, and the nature group has a heavy emphasis on tracking and archery.

Now for distinguishing the realms. Holy spells don't really need changing. Possibly remove earthquake and destruction. Arcane loses some spells, notably: stone to mud, detect enchantment, pretty much all of Tenser's.

Then you have to come up with spells for nature class. Luckily most variants have such a nature class. The big question is whether you want to let the player summon or not. That would be a big change for V. Other advantages that you could give the druids and rangers in exchange for weaker spells is innate telepathy at some clevel.

The final goal would involve shrinking the spell books by 1 (or 2?) books for each realm. The idea being that they'll need to rely on devices for some of the missing spells, just like priests need !speed currently.

The current ranger is probably a blend of what I envision the ranger and the archer to be.

[Derakon]

I actually rather like the symmetry in having all realms have Destruction somewhere in an endgame book. Doesn't matter how you get there, mystical powers let you blow stuff up.

[d_m]

I prefer radial symmetry here... I don't mind having warrior be the only non-caster class... I can imagine three spokes of magic systems (arcane, holy, nature) with a half-caster and full-caster each which all move out from the warrior hub.

I am open to the idea of adding a Druid. I'm less enamored of Archer and Alchemist.

In my opinion Ranger already works kind of like an Archer (and I am comfortable with this) and I don't mind giving rogue some device skills like an Alchemist might have.

I'd like to avoid an explosion of races/classes in V.

[Angelus]

druid would be interesting. I'm not really a fan of taking spells away from mages though, especially stone to mud-for the most part, I find tunneling to be annoying, and don't see any reason to make it more annoying than it already is.

As for symmetry, I would say that you're looking for it in the wrong place. In the case of classes, the goal should be to cover all the major playing styles the game allows. I feel like that is handled fairly well with the current classes-minor adjustments could be made, but there's nothing in *serious* need of improvement. I dislike the idea of adding a class that is focused on using devices-to me, devices seem like one of the more boring parts of the game. There's so many wands/staves that it's annoying to separate out which ones are worth using and which ones aren't, and even then, you're left with something that keymaps don't work very well with. with warriors, you can hack and slash and get through combat quickly. With mages, you can have keymaps to your most used spells. With rangers, h fires the default ammo.

[Napsterbater]

I'd like to avoid an explosion of races/classes in V.

As would I. Plenty of variants already do that. I greatly enjoy V's parsimony. If we add race/classes, we should take care that each addition be as finely balanced as all the other classes are.

[Starhawk]

In my opinion Ranger already works kind of like an Archer (and I am comfortable with this)

Very much so. I love my ranger utility spells... but the attack spells are functionally worthless when compared to melee or ranged. My high-level rangers have been unable to muster up an Ice Storm or Meteor Swarm that is even worth the trouble to cast. I wouldn't mind losing most of the attack spells altogether.

[fizzix]

As would I. Plenty of variants already do that. I greatly enjoy V's parsimony. If we add race/classes, we should take care that each addition be as finely balanced as all the other classes are.

wait hold on here... The classes are finely balanced?