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Arguments over how many healing potions to stock up for the final fights have reminded me of an idea I've always kind of liked conceptually, but had reservations about, balance-wise: removing all ability for the player to heal themselves, except via making progress in the game.
The driving motivation behind this is action/platformer games, especially the modern Castlevanias and similar fangames, where healing items are really a crutch for players who lack the skill needed to consistently dodge enemies. There's no skill in simply sitting in front of Dracula, mashing attack, and eating a pot roast every time he hits you; you're just demonstrating that your supply of healing items is larger than his HP pool. It's far more impressive to recognize every signal, react appropriately, dodge every attack, and beat the boss without even getting scratched. Instead of boss fights being damage races, they're intricate dances. I'd like some way to translate that to Angband, while still leaving it recognizably Angband. This may prove difficult.
The first change to the game is of course to remove all sources of healing -- no potions, no spells, no innate regeneration. The only ways to heal are a) to level up, and b) to reach a new dungeon level for the first time.
Naturally, this change requires substantial changes to basically every aspect of combat balance. Since the player can't heal easily, they need far more options to avoid or mitigate damage taken. Or rather, monsters can't have abilities that just directly harm the player with no possible counter or dodge. Even standing in melee range should be a safe thing to do if the player approaches it correctly. Fundamentally this means re-thinking what it means for the player or a monster to make an "attack".
This is where I start getting stuck, though. I'd like to figure out some way for monsters to mark out a "zone" that they're going to attack, so e.g. a dragon would on turn 1 prepare to breathe, and on turn 2 actually breathe, so you'd have a chance to move out of the way. Likewise, any melee attack from an enemy would take at least 2 turns to "go off". But I suspect that would make one-on-one fights trivial, while making multi-enemy fights still overly dangerous.
So I'll turn it over to you. Given the proposed starting change of removing healing, how would you tweak things to make the game fair?
The driving motivation behind this is action/platformer games, especially the modern Castlevanias and similar fangames, where healing items are really a crutch for players who lack the skill needed to consistently dodge enemies. There's no skill in simply sitting in front of Dracula, mashing attack, and eating a pot roast every time he hits you; you're just demonstrating that your supply of healing items is larger than his HP pool. It's far more impressive to recognize every signal, react appropriately, dodge every attack, and beat the boss without even getting scratched. Instead of boss fights being damage races, they're intricate dances. I'd like some way to translate that to Angband, while still leaving it recognizably Angband. This may prove difficult.
The first change to the game is of course to remove all sources of healing -- no potions, no spells, no innate regeneration. The only ways to heal are a) to level up, and b) to reach a new dungeon level for the first time.
Naturally, this change requires substantial changes to basically every aspect of combat balance. Since the player can't heal easily, they need far more options to avoid or mitigate damage taken. Or rather, monsters can't have abilities that just directly harm the player with no possible counter or dodge. Even standing in melee range should be a safe thing to do if the player approaches it correctly. Fundamentally this means re-thinking what it means for the player or a monster to make an "attack".
This is where I start getting stuck, though. I'd like to figure out some way for monsters to mark out a "zone" that they're going to attack, so e.g. a dragon would on turn 1 prepare to breathe, and on turn 2 actually breathe, so you'd have a chance to move out of the way. Likewise, any melee attack from an enemy would take at least 2 turns to "go off". But I suspect that would make one-on-one fights trivial, while making multi-enemy fights still overly dangerous.
So I'll turn it over to you. Given the proposed starting change of removing healing, how would you tweak things to make the game fair?
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