Halls of Mist attributes and skills

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Primary and specialist skills

The first five skills on the character sheet are primary skills, meaning that all classes increase these skills with experience, with varying speed. Your relevant stats and your race have an effect also, in some cases a very big one.

Fighting (DEX & STR)
Shooting (DEX & STR)
Throwing (DEX & STR)
Magic Device (PRE)
Saving Throw (WIS)

The last five skills are specialist skills, meaning that only one class increases his skill score further with experience. This allows your race and especially the relevant stat to have a huge effect on these skills. Upon character creation characters with different arrays in stats tend to have wildly different values in specialist skills.

Stealth (no stat bonuses, only developed by Rogue)
Perception (WIS, only developed by Rogue)
Jumping (DEX, only developed by Warrior)
Alchemy (MEM, only developed by Templar)
Navigation (MEM, only developed by Ranger)

The class that is specialized in the skill isn't usually the best one at the skill at first. But as he gains experience he will eventually surpass every other class.



Templars

You haven't heard of the Templar class yet. Templar is a deeply religious knight with a vow of poverty, meaning that he only gets to keep 1/3 of the gold he finds. Templars are very interested in mysteries and in the occult. They are the best alchemists in the game. (The class is inspired by both Rosicrucianism and the Knights Templar.)

Templars are almost as good fighters as Warriors, and have almost as many hit points. Unlike Warriors, they are just as good archers as melee fighters. They have a superb saving throw.

Templars practise ancient armed martial arts with swords and bows. They can access the Lore proficiency Fencing, which gives them an extra blow with a sword against persons and humanoids until they leave the current dungeon level. With Greater Lore (INT+WIS 30+) they gain access to Archery proficiency, which increases their bow might multiplier by two.

Just like Priests, Templars may offer torches for the goddesses in place of ego items, and ego items in place of artifacts.

[Halls of Mist doesn't have Paladins, as I replaced them with Shamans. This class fills the niche nicely. I was also missing a master alchemist class -- alchemy is now very, very important, and I'll talk about it later. Lastly it's nice that Mist has a poor non-spellcaster class in Templar, a middle class non-spellcaster in Warrior, and a filthy rich non-spellcaster in Rogue.]

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The Five Goddesses

This is an altar of obsession on a stone platform. ='s are steps.



Our hero takes the steps to the platform (no Jumping check needed) and drops an ego item on the altar.

"A brilliant light consumes a Short Bow of Accuracy (+8, x2, 7) -more-"
"Beleth, the Queen of Hell, blesses you. -more-"
"You have no more Short Bows of Accuracy (+8, x2, 7)."

You may sacrifice any ego item (except arrows) on an altar to gain a deity's temporary blessing. The blessing will last at least for this dungeon level and for the next dungeon level you visit. After that every time you take the stairs down there's a 50 % chance that the goddess withdraws her blessing.

Here's what Beleth's blessing looks like on the character sheet:


As you can see, Beleth grants the character "PRE+++" which translates to +3 to Presence. (The bonus also shows in your racial bonuses; Rattikin has normally -2 to Presence, now it's +1.)

Deities grant either +3 to one ability, or +2 to one ability and +1 to second one. For example, Beleth could have granted "PRE++ STR+" instead.

The blessings of the goddesses are generated procedurally and are different in every game. Each goddess has a "style guide" of thematic abilities, and one or two of them are picked randomly for their blessing.

Here's a list of all possible deity bonuses that may show on your character sheet:

• STR = Strength
• MEM = Memory
• WIS = Wisdom
• DEX = Dexterity
• CON = Constitution
• PRE = Presence
• Ber = Berserk. You gain extra Reserves points which may be used for the (b)erserk proficiency, but you can no longer use the (r)ecover proficiency.
• Esc = Escapes. You gain Escapes points which may be spent for the (e)scape proficiency.
• Arm = Armor. +4 to your armour class per +.
• Rng = Range. Extra range with bows, thrown weapons, spells, and devices. In addition, you gain the bonus to your throwing and archery skills.
• Ste = Stealth. Bonus to Stealth skill.

This is a polytheistic world, and goddesses don't usually mind if you worship other goddesses. You may have at most three blessings at the same time.

Priests and Templars are experts at religious practices. If they drop any kind of torch on an altar, the goddess treats it as an ego item. If they offer an ego item, it is treated as an artifact.


Becoming a permanent follower

If you sacrifice an artifact to a deity, you become her permanent follower.

You gain her normal blessing permanently. Whenever you offer a new ego item or an artifact for her, you gain a doubly powerful temporary bonus. Note that you can first offer an artifact to become a follower, and then right away offer an ego item to gain the temporary double bonus.

For example, Beleth's (from our previous example) double bonus would be "PRE++++++" or +6 to Presence.

If a deity grants bonuses to two abilities, like PRE++ STR+, the double bonus is always +3 to both abilities, "PRE+++ STR+++".

Please not that deities don't want their follower to make offerings to their enemies! Making offerings to friendly goddesses is good practise.

Here's a pentagon of the deities. Each goddess has two friends next to her, and two enemies on the opposite side.

               Beleth, the Queen of Hell (obsession)

Laverna, the Mistress                  Discordia, the Warrior
of the Underworld                      (conflict)
(secrets)

          Cyrridven, the Crone    Eostre, the Maiden of Spring
          (transformation)          (purity)

Good religious strategies

In the beginning of the game you have no knowledge of the abilities each deity boosts. It's a good idea to sacrifice ego items to find gain knowledge about at least a couple of deities before you commit to a goddess permanently.

Even if you are a follower, It is possible to change your deity by offering an artifact to another goddess. Be aware, though, that both goddesses will hate you for some time if you switch to an enemy goddess!

If a goddess gets angry at you, her bonuses turn into penalties.

Unfortunately at the moment the game doesn't keep the information you know about the goddesses for you. You may want to write a note about the goddesses' bonuses for yourself.

Please comment if this post makes sense to you or if it's incoherent babbling.

Edited to make the language more readable and the pictures smaller. I was in a hurry I posted this.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I'm a bit worried about players' reception of altars and alchemical circles (coming next).

I had some troubles explaining the mechanics to my playtesters even face to face. The mechanics aren't super-complicated but they aren't instantly intuitive either.

I also know there's a lot of resistance in the roguelike world against exotic terrain features.

Uh, perhaps this is the reason why I had so much difficulty trying to write the manual for the game. Programming and playing was fun, trying to "sell" the game to other people was complicated. Maybe other developers are familiar with the phenomenon.

I still feel the mechanics are worth it. They have many functions:

• to offer alternative uses for objects
• to make character classes more distinct from each other
• to breathe flavour into the dungeon
• to make every dungeon level a different kind of challenge
• to create interesting strategic decisions for the player, not just tactical

I'm also willing to do some extra work to make these mechanics more accessible to players. Maybe a help screen should pop up when the player first stumbles upon an altar?

[LostTemplar]

Maybe a help screen should pop up when the player first stumbles upon an altar?

No, the good RPG should be misterious, anyone can read source code after all, if he really wants to. Just dont forget to add a possiblity to sacrifice youself with a wrong keypress, during experiments with altar.

[Derakon]

I don't think that the altars are inherently confusing; many roguelikes have altars that you can sacrifice stuff on. The only important things are:

1) Make certain the player knows the command to interact with the altar.
2) Make certain the command only allows valid items to be sacrificed (with appropriate error message if the player has nothing, e.g. "You have nothing worthy of $diety").
3) Make certain that Priests and Templars know they can sacrifice torches.
4) Have a confirmation before sacrificing an artifact ("Are you sure you want to convert to worshiping $diety?")
5) Have unambiguous messages for when the blessing starts and stops.

[Djabanete]

Mikko, if you're worried about the intuitiveness of altars, I have an idea.

Altars are unaligned; that is, rather than finding an Altar of Beleth, you just find an Altar. To make things flavorful and transparent, you could even call it an Altar of Sacrifice. Instead of only being able to sacrifice certain things, you can sacrifice any item you want, provided it's of sufficient value. (If someone tries to sacrifice something too cheap, you could have a message like "The gods desire a more valuable sacrifice.")

The blessing you receive depends on the item sacrificed. Different gods would appreciate different things. Some would prefer corpses of powerful monsters, others would prefer spellbooks, others would prefer artifact weapons, etc. (Some items could be appreciated by more than one god, so you wouldn't always know whose blessing you'd get by sacrificing them.)

By this method, a beginning player could easily figure out that "altars are meant for sacrificing valuable stuff." As the player becomes more accustomed to the game, he might realize that gods have specific preferences, and he might start using the altars strategically, choosing carefully what to sacrifice. As long as the gods' preferences are pretty straightforward, I think this could be a successful method.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

tAltars are unaligned; that is, rather than finding an Altar of Beleth, you just find an Altar.

The names and colors of the altars, and the evocative names of the goddesses are an important part of the mythos-building. I'm keeping them. I want my megadungeon to feel weird and also to be a real place with its own character.

Instead of only being able to sacrifice certain things, you can sacrifice any item you want, provided it's of sufficient value. (If someone tries to sacrifice something too cheap, you could have a message like "The gods desire a more valuable sacrifice.")

I think my current method is simple enough, except for one thing. "Ego item" is game-speak. A playtester who didn't come from Angband background had troubles with it. "Oh, I can sacrifice Dagger of Corrosion, why not Ring of Protection?" It does feel artificial.

Artifact is an easier category to tell apart. Angband is pretty good at telling the player that this item is really special.

A big plus about ego items and artifacts is that you don't need to inspect an item to know whether it can be sacrificed. One look at your inventory is enough. Using item value in gold pieces loses here.

How could I make ego items a category with some real meaning inside the game world? Or would some other category of items work better?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I forgot to mention that Kamband was a big inspiration for me as I designed the altars and goddesses. It's a great variant with a mysterious feel all its own. Actually Kamband may have had a wider influence on my world building than I've even noticed.

[ekolis]

You could give ego items a special color that they appear in, or special descriptive text, or maybe just call them something else, and use that word as a prefix for all such items (e.g. "a Heroic Dagger of Corrosion" as oppose to just "a Dagger of Corrosion")...

[Derakon]

Yeah, go with the Diablo route here -- distinguish between "magical", "rare", and "artifact". Ego-items are "rares"; all rings are either "magical" or "artifact". Though that's mostly because the concept of an ego ring never really got explored in Angband. Marking the items by color makes it easy to tell which category an item falls into. Diablo uses blue for magic, yellow for rare, and gold for artifact (and green for set items). I suggest using green for rare instead to better distinguish it from the gold artifact color.

[LostTemplar]

Or use FAAngband style and consider all jewellery as egos.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Alchemical Circles

A test. Can you figure out how Alchemical Circles work based on the screenshots?

[Derakon]

Sounds like you find incomplete circles in the dungeon and can patch them up using powder of the right type. A completed circle then creates an instant effect, applies bonuses/buffs so long as you stand in the circle, or has some level-wide effect, depending on type.

[ekolis]

Ooh, that's cool! Can you also make your own circles by gathering ridiculous quantities of these powder vials and arranging them properly?

[buzzkill]

... and can patch them up using powder of the right type. A completed circle then creates an instant effect, applies bonuses/buffs so long as you stand in the circle, or has some level-wide effect, depending on type.

Powder of the right type, or any powder?

Only possible problem I foresee is that is that you have to inspect the powder vial in order to learn about the circle/terrain feature, or does inspecting the terrain give the same general message.

BTW, the circle of nexus sounds really cool. Teleport others into it, then get teleported there yourself. Doh!