[announce] Sangband 1.0.1 released

[Bostock]

On the other hand, Mikko, Druids get a special shapechange that improves their Unarmed.

(On the other other hand, a whole Druid book is wasted on pointlessly diddling with the weather. Ugh.)

[Mikko Lehtinen]

On the other hand, Mikko, Druids get a special shapechange that improves their Unarmed.

Ah, interesting! So both holy spellcasters are biased towards martial arts.

Still, I would like to play sword-wielding rangers, too. I'm pro-choice. A large portion of holy spellcasters are going to be elves now. I'd like to see more variety among those characters.

[Bostock]

Black Breath

Once a while back, camlost complained on r.g.r.a. about Black Breath being broken at both ends - too strong if it comes early (and too rare to be worth the difficult process of avoiding every monster that could deliver it) and too weak if it comes late.

All this is still true.

While the "comes early" only happens once in a large number of games, it just happened to me right now, and boy did I just die a *frustrating* death.

[NotMorgoth]

Is there any way to import monster memory from earlier versions (assuming the monsters have not changed...?)

I've been playing the competition, and am missing my (nearly complete) monster memory from the unofficial beta version.

[Bostock]

Ah, interesting! So both holy spellcasters are biased towards martial arts.

Really only Druids, and only mildly (the spell in question is in book five, and the form in question competes with other forms that have nice non-unarmed benefits).

Druids are not penalized for wielding sharp weapons. Priests are, of course (though blessed sharp weapons are OK - too bad they're not more common), but unarmed isn't their only option...

A large portion of holy spellcasters are going to be elves now.

I don't understand you here. Certainly there's no law against, say, half-troll druids!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Hey Bostock, maybe I can clarify.

With the highest wisdom, more elves are going to be clerics and druids than any other race. That's why it is important to change the skill costs so that not all elven clerics and druids are karatekas, to increase replayability.

[Bostock]

OK, that was one of my theories as to what you were thinking of, but I decided not to put words in your mouth.

The thing is, high wisdom is not the only factor in what makes a good cleric/druid. Spellcasting, magical power, and school abilities are also important, and when you consider that a lot of their magic supports combat, good combat skills and stats are pretty helpful too.

For example, a half-troll priest is actually a very strong character!

[camlost]

Once a while back, camlost complained on r.g.r.a. about Black Breath being broken at both ends - too strong if it comes early (and too rare to be worth the difficult process of avoiding every monster that could deliver it) and too weak if it comes late.

All this is still true.

While the "comes early" only happens once in a large number of games, it just happened to me right now, and boy did I just die a *frustrating* death.

Yes, it's quite rare, but it really does suck.

Noted: http://code.google.com/p/skills-angb...s/detail?id=49

[camlost]

Is there any way to import monster memory from earlier versions (assuming the monsters have not changed...?)

I've been playing the competition, and am missing my (nearly complete) monster memory from the unofficial beta version.

There's a competition? Indeed there is.

I don't know a way to restore monster memory. Perhaps with the next version, I'll try to do a better job of working on savefile compatibility. You could, of course read the edit files, tedious though that may be.

Also, the monster memory is built into the character, IIRC. Everyone will be at a similar disadvantage.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Bostock, that is all true. I've played half-troll druids myself, and they are really powerful.

(In my opinion the price of spellcasting, magical power and school skills are not really that important for a spellcaster. They just affect the time it takes to develop the skills. In comparison, good attributes and combat skills really make you more powerful in the end.)

At first, I was mostly concerned about elves being too narrow.

But I'm beginning to see a wider problem here. At the moment the non-human races that are most suitable for priests or druids are elf, hobbit, half-troll and half-orc. All but half-orcs have bludgeoning weapons or martial arts as their best melee skills. That's not good for game balance. Too often priests get to use their best melee skills with reduced penalties.

This will probably get sorted out eventually, as races are "work in progress" for the moment.

My suggestions for the race tweaks: make elves better with weapons, and make sure that the new high-wisdom race doesn't have martial arts or bludgeoning as its cheapest weapon skills.

[camlost]

Ah, interesting! So both holy spellcasters are biased towards martial arts.

Still, I would like to play sword-wielding rangers, too. I'm pro-choice. A large portion of holy spellcasters are going to be elves now. I'd like to see more variety among those characters.

I have plans to add Ents, at the very least. I have no idea which weapon skills they'd be good with (though there's probably a racial anti-preference for polearms). I would guess that martial arts is also their thing.

Perhaps elves should be less good with karate? Or perhaps weapon penalties should extend to martial arts? Or perhaps it's truly time to upgrade blunt weapons to be as good as sharp weapons and remove the priestly penalties. It's not like there are ancilliary benefits to priests over mages anymore (better hp, combat abilities, etc.).

I have to ask before I axe a race -- Gnomes aren't exactly true to the source, and dark-elves fill a fairly similar niche. Are gnomes necessary?

[camlost]

But I'm beginning to see a wider problem here. At the moment the non-human races that are most suitable for priests or druids are elf, hobbit, half-troll and half-orc. All but half-orcs have bludgeoning weapons or martial arts as their best melee skills. That's not good for game balance. Too often priests get to use their best melee skills with reduced penalties.

Also as a possibility is being more generous with mana and/or failure rate to low stat casters. That's the primary reason I have trouble with low-spellcasting-stat races. It's just so hard to have a reasonable amount of mana to use it effectively. That would help broaden the race/magic combos and alleviate the problem in a different way.

[camlost]

- I stopped taking quests for a while, because they slow me down, lower my score, and force me to spend time on boring, shallow levels. The game shouldn't reward slow descending. Maybe quests should have a minimum dungeon level based on player power?

The hardness (depth of monsters) of the quests comes in part (potentially) from the character power, but the depth does not. I increased the depth increase for quests (was 2-3) to 2-5 to slow down the rate of quests, as I have perceived the problem also. I think incorporating the character power in quest depth also makes a lot of sense. It'll act as an automatic relief valve for character power. Thanks!

[camlost]

the biggest old ones are fixed

Does that mean that the restarting a character bug is gone?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Perhaps elves should be less good with karate? Or perhaps weapon penalties should extend to martial arts? Or perhaps it's truly time to upgrade blunt weapons to be as good as sharp weapons and remove the priestly penalties. It's not like there are ancilliary benefits to priests over mages anymore (better hp, combat abilities, etc.)

How about this for elves: karate 9, sword 10, polearm 11, hafted 12.

As Bostock said, both priests and druids have lots of spells that help in battle. So it makes sense to give high-wisdom races many viable options for combat skills. (Dwarven clerics and rangers had many viable combat skills.)

I'm not against removing priestly penalties.

In their place, you could have something more flavourful. Like a talent Honour that you get by raising Piety. If you activate the talent, you get combat bonuses for as long as you fight honourfully. But if you attack a fleeing opponent, you get some severe penalties.

If you are honour-bound while holding a holy weapon, the weapon gets some extra abilities. And if you attack a fleeing opponent with a Holy weapon, you call the wrath of God on you...

Blunt weapons could have a bigger chance of being Holy.

I have to ask before I axe a race -- Gnomes aren't exactly true to the source, and dark-elves fill a fairly similar niche. Are gnomes necessary?

I've never liked gnomes.

Also, are giants necessary anymore? They used to be important, because there weren't any other tough and strong races that didn't have penalties for intelligence. Nowadays dwarves fill this niche.