Comp 219

[Nick]

And, FYI, a quick glance at the ladder will tell you that I have this one in the bag.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Originally Posted by Nick

And, FYI, a quick glance at the ladder will tell you that I have this one in the bag.

Pecked to death by a crow? An ignominious death, to be sure. It's happened to me too on occasion.

[Pete Mack]

Also: great choice of a name, Nick!

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Also: great choice of a name, Nick!

Gwarl's idea

[Grotug]

you enter fox form so you can fight.
you need to heal.
you leave foxform and quaff.
you enter foxform so you can fight.
you need to heal.
you leave foxform so you can quaff.
you enter foxform so you can fight.
you need to ?phase.
you leave foxform so you can ?phase.
you enter foxform so you can fight.
you need to do an AOE attack.
you leave foxform so you can do a poison ball.
you enter foxform so you can fight
you see a wand that may be TO.
you'll need to leave foxform to can pick it up.
You have learned the rune of aggravation.

Hmmmmm.

There must be a better way.

You queue up HT Warrior and enjoy your life.



I get that foxform needs a penalty of some kind, given how powerful it is, but I wonder if not being able to pick things up is the best one? I probably can get on board with not being able to use spell books or magical devices or shoot missiles, but not being able to pick up objects or quaff I think is too much (and not much logical). What about an even bigger dex bonus and a constitution penalty?

[wobbly]

I suspect a fox buff enough to fight a dragon is capable of finding a way to pick up & carry things. At the end of the day shape-shifting is not going to work if it fails the fun test. Not being able to pick up things is unfun. It's maybe viable if fox-form was cheap enough for constant switching but I suspect just letting the player pick up is even simpler.

I could get behind higher fail casting shapeshifted. I'm not sure there's a good reason to disable casting shifted. Every animal in Tolkien talks (& trees/plants often do to) & I suspect if I search hard enough I'll find the eagles or something similar using magic.

Personally I'm more interested in fox form being a stealth form then a melee form. For that you really need to be able to pick-up or at least change with the same convenience as swapping in a mouse ring (the SP cost prevents it being a simple swap at the moment). Ideally you want to still access your detects too, but a big enough infravision boost might be enough for early game.

[PowerWyrm]

Originally Posted by Grotug

you enter fox form so you can fight.
you need to heal.
you leave foxform and quaff.
you enter foxform so you can fight.
you need to heal.
you leave foxform so you can quaff.
you enter foxform so you can fight.
you need to ?phase.
you leave foxform so you can ?phase.
you enter foxform so you can fight.
you need to do an AOE attack.
you leave foxform so you can do a poison ball.
you enter foxform so you can fight
you see a wand that may be TO.
you'll need to leave foxform to can pick it up.
You have learned the rune of aggravation.

Hmmmmm.

There must be a better way.

You queue up HT Warrior and enjoy your life.



I get that foxform needs a penalty of some kind, given how powerful it is, but I wonder if not being able to pick things up is the best one? I probably can get on board with not being able to use spell books or magical devices or shoot missiles, but not being able to pick up objects or quaff I think is too much (and not much logical). What about an even bigger dex bonus and a constitution penalty?

Yeah this is the reason why I don't play druids in this version. When porting the class to my variant, I'll simply add the "fox" as a new mob and use the current shapeshifting code to deal with fox form. You'll get the bonuses, with the usual 40% penalty to hps to compensate.

[Nick]

From the current master thread:

Originally Posted by Nick

Thanks for the excellent druid comments. Its unsurprising I guess that the shapechanges aren't balanced correctly as they're so new. I think definitely shapechanged players should be able to pick up objects, but probably still not do anything else.

I'm not changing anything in the new classes at the moment because we're in the middle of a competition and I'm still collecting feedback on them and I'm also in the middle of coding new monster AI features. But I'm not considering the new classes as finished yet; maybe not even close.

[Sky]

From my experience with early fox form, i thought it was just right - the problem was that it came too early. +Spd +blow should have been a 30+ spell, but the concept works.

Imho:

1st available form: a retreat/panic form. Something whose main purpose is to GTFO.
Lets name it Fox Form, +3 Stealth, +5 Spd. Some combat penalty.
Why not A: cover tracks.

2nd form: a tank form, lets call it BearForm. +AC +CON. Normal melee, maybe pStun. Maybe slight +hit. A: roar (cone of fear)

3rd form: a combat form, let's call it .. idk, Treant?? +AC +blows +hit +dmg. pBlind pStun FA.
A: AoE melee

4th and final: Dragon Form. Breath, immunities, +Spd, general badassness.


So you have a character which is both a decent healer (as paladin) and foghter (as warrior or even better) BUT must shift between the two, losing an action.

That's your druid class.

Im not sure if right now switching between form and human takes time - if it doesn't, it should.

[Derakon]

One possible approach to this: let the druid just be flat-out terrible in unmorphed form. Lousy HP, mediocre stats, poor skills, etc. Then you can make different forms that each provide a substantial boost at some specific thing, while retaining full capabilities otherwise (picking up and using items, casting spells, etc.). For example:

* A combat form (bear?) that's somewhere between paladin and ranger in terms of combat prowess. Boost HP (and instantly regain ~30-50% HP when you become a bear), gains an extra attack at some clvl, etc.
* A spellcasting form (owl?) that gets better cast stats and recovers SP quickly (maybe recovers a chunk of SP when you shift into it). Since druid spells aren't strongly shared with other classes, this can afford to be a "best possible" at what it does, on the same tier as mage/priest. Unmorphed druids would have worse spellcasting stats than mage/priest do, though probably still keep the min-0% failure rate.
* A stealth form (fox). Again, not as good at stealth (or trap perception/disarming) as a rogue is, but better than probably anyone else, so long as they maintain the form.

Basically you get a class that can pretend to be other classes, while retaining access to its own spell list; however, it's not as good as the classes that it imitates. Versatile, but not powerful. It must be not as good as the pure class because then why would you ever play that pure class? Just play a druid and shift into the relevant form, then stay there.

I'm not convinced a fourth form is warranted. The above three cover a form for exploration (fox), a form for brute combat (bear), and a form for ranged/spellcasting combat (owl). I'd want to see a compelling niche for a fourth form before adding it. That said, having the forms evolve over time (better stat boosts, etc.) wouldn't be unreasonable IMO.