My Thoughts on 4.2

[Pete Mack]

It is the racial EXP penalty that mattered. The class penalties never made a lot of sense. Picking gnome vs high-elf was a matter of trade-offs when HE mage took so much longer to level.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by DavidMedley

What are the ideal Druid races? Thematically seems like it should be elves, but their WIS penalties seem to be quite a hindrance. Dwarf druid? I can't see a dwarf wanting to do something so namby pamby. Hobbits also seem thematically like good druids... moreso than mages or necromancers to me.

It's funny you should mention this

I have done pretty much exactly this for FAangband races - elves are high WIS, dwarves are high INT. This is not changed in Angband because I formed the belief that upending the races would upset too many people.

[Hounded]

Originally Posted by Derakon

It occurs to me that "number of inventory slots" is a potential way to balance classes. Maybe nobody needs any inventory slots, but mages are bad at carrying things so they have -2 slots, and warriors are awesome at carrying things so they get +2 slots.

I think that the handling of the strength stat and item weights does this effectively. You want to be a high-Int Wizard off the get-go you're not gonna be able to haul a lot of chaff around. Conversely, warrior-types which are dependent upon strength have that greater capacity.

hmmm... wonder how hard it would be to incorporate a "Bag of Holding" into Angband.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Hounded

I think that the handling of the strength stat and item weights does this effectively. You want to be a high-Int Wizard off the get-go you're not gonna be able to haul a lot of chaff around. Conversely, warrior-types which are dependent upon strength have that greater capacity.

You're right that this takes care of things in the midgame, but the inventory slot limit is a much bigger deal in the late game when everyone has more or less arbitrary weight capacity.

I mean, I guess you could also make the weight capacity constraints much more rigorous, but then you're debuffing physically weak races instead of mechanically powerful classes.

[DavidMedley]

Originally Posted by diego gonzalez

im currently playing a dwarf druid. Its fun!!! Spells and melee. I use stone to mud a lot, so he is some kind of miner-druid

Heh yeah that's cool

[DavidMedley]

Originally Posted by fph

Balance. A warrior has to lug around staffs, rods and potions to get the same effects you get via spells. So, if you eliminate spellbooks, it's actually warriors that end up having fewer slots available. Casters are already at an advantage like this, because a single spellbook serves multiple purposes.

Good point.

[DrWho42]

Originally Posted by DavidMedley

Hello! Angband player going back to around 2005. I'm creating this thread to post my feedback, for whatever it's worth.

i maybe started playing in the late 1990s, then rediscovered it in maybe the late 2000s?

[DavidMedley]

Blackguards seem very boring until at least CL 8. I remember this special ability in Faangband where you'd get a slight speed boost whenever you attack in melee or get hit. Maybe blackguards should start with something like that. Maybe not speed, but Berserk Strength. And the CL 14 spell could be used to get BS before combat or generate extra turns of it between combats?

What is the magnitude of IMPAIR_HP? Like, do HPs recover at half the normal rate?

I haven't played this class much, but it doesn't seem to add much interest to the game thus far.

[Diego Gonzalez]

I like the combat spells of the blackguard a lot. It was one of my strongest melee characters ever. I had the same feeling of boredom at first but later it was a fun experience.

[DavidMedley]

I really like that the ways of identifying traps have been reduced. It always seemed a bit cheap to just magically identify all traps, and then what seems like it's supposed to be a big part of the game is reduced to almost nothing.

I wonder if something other than all-or-nothing trap ID would work? Thematically, whoever set up a particular trap might have imbued it with some degree of magical detection resistance. In-game you'd have a chance to notice traps with magic just like you have a chance to notice traps with your eyes.