New Race

[Jungle_Boy]

Sometimes I just want to go into the dungeon and smash everything I see. It's fun to just walk around and pulverize stuff, unfortunately you usually get very dead very quickly when trying to do that. I also suffer a lot of deaths it seems right after I lose a high level character because I am not used to being as careful as you have to be with a new character.

I decided to try to create a race that would be able to smash things good but I did not want to create something that made the game too easy so I needed to create some drawbacks to playing it as well. What I came up with is a half-giant, I imagine them as the twisted offspring of giants and something at least humanoid, perhaps even human but not necessarily so. They are immensely powerful but make half-trolls look like willowy beauties. Basically the only thing they are good at is melee, they have a bunch of HP but all their skills besides melee are atrocious. They live short lives and thus they level fairly quickly.

The biggest drawback I gave them is the AGGRAVATE flag, I then tried to make them powerful enough to survive having this. I may have gone too powerful but I'm not sure. What do you think you would need to make it worthwhile to play a character with AGGRAVATE from the beginning? Below you can find the entry from the p_race edit file. I basically replaced the half-elf entry since I never play them anyway. I played one game so far as a half-giant then I made a couple more changes. I made it to around dl 40 without using any magical devices at all then got killed because of lack of escapes when some gravity hounds got me into a room.

N:1:Half-Giant
S:7:-6:-5:-5:5:-12
R:-5:-75:0:-5:0:10:20:-50:5:40
X:15:80:4
I:21:15:5
H:180:5:160:3
W:250:15:250:10
F:IM_ACID | IM_COLD | IM_FIRE | IM_ELEC
F:RES_POIS | REGEN | AGGRAVATE
F:RES_CONFU | RES_BLIND |
F:RES_FEAR | FREE_ACT
C:0

If you are interested give it a try, just copy the above text into your p_race.txt file in place of the half elf entry and start bashing stuff. I'd be interested in any feedback whether from actual play or just as ideas. My goal is to make the early levels moderately easy but not stupidly easy. This character should play as a warrior who kills everything rather than trying to detect and avoid. I know this is very not angbandlike but I like playing that way.

Thanks for any feedback offered!

[LostTemplar]

Only miss ESP to be instant winner

[Derakon]

Yeah, this guy doesn't really need to wear equipment much, does he? All of the important resistances are covered, you're immune to the basic four elements, crapton of hitpoints, massive STR/CON bonuses...

For what you're going for, you've given too many abilities, I'd say. Reduce the immunities to resistances, nix poison resistance (don't even really need it with all those HP), nix blindness/confusion resistance, lose Free Action. I think that'd still probably be worth playing even with the aggravation.

[Jungle_Boy]

Thanks Derakon, that's kinda what I was thinking for the basic four. My plan is to make his magic devices skill so bad that they are basically unusable until later in the game and even then they will be erratic. This means that early on the only thing that can save him is his HP and scrolls/potions. That's why I had the blind and conf resistance in there. I think I'll try leaving the conf resistance, (singlemindedness does not lend itself to being confused) but losing fear, blind, poison and changing the immunities to resistances. I will probably need to play with the skills a little more to get it where I want it.

[Derakon]

Making him reliant on scrolls and potions does not require making scrolls guaranteed to be usable. Getting both blindness and confusion resistance covered can be a major milestone since it means that you are guaranteed to always be able to use your scrolls. I don't see why this guy should get that for free.

Personally I'd recommend keeping fear resistance though. Seems to make sense for a fighter-type.

[Matthias]

Hengband has a Berserker Class that plays a lot like you want to play. They cannot read scrolls or use devices, will never hit a thing with bows but are really powerfull in melee.

[Jungle_Boy]

Originally Posted by Matthias

Hengband has a Berserker Class that plays a lot like you want to play. They cannot read scrolls or use devices, will never hit a thing with bows but are really powerfull in melee.

I think I played them at one point, but I missed my tiles.

[Therem Harth]

Originally Posted by Jungle_Boy

Sometimes I just want to go into the dungeon and smash everything I see. It's fun to just walk around and pulverize stuff, unfortunately you usually get very dead very quickly when trying to do that. I also suffer a lot of deaths it seems right after I lose a high level character because I am not used to being as careful as you have to be with a new character.

You pretty much got in one why I usually play without permadeath - that and the fact that starting new characters is a big time-eater, and I don't have that much time in my life. That being said:

<snip snip snip>

N:1:Half-Giant
S:7:-6:-5:-5:5:-12
R:-5:-75:0:-5:0:10:20:-50:5:40
X:15:80:4
I:21:15:5
H:180:5:160:3
W:250:15:250:10
F:IM_ACID | IM_COLD | IM_FIRE | IM_ELEC

Okay, my first thought here is "custom race". This is the sort of thing I might cook up when I want to play a really fast, god-character-versus-god-monsters type of game, and don't care much about fair play (or at all about getting a score). IMO there's nothing wrong with that; it is just a game, and as long as you're honest about modifying it and don't try to post the scores of "cheat" characters, mess around with it as you like.

That being said, all four immunities from the start is not material for any sane variant. I'd say strip it down to resistances and you'd have something.

F:RES_POIS | REGEN | AGGRAVATE

Aggravation may actually be too much IMO, it is extremely bad.

F:RES_CONFU | RES_BLIND |
F:RES_FEAR | FREE_ACT

Okay, they're like trolls on steroids right? Big, powerful, and really really stupid. I'd say that, if anything, they should easily be confused, blinded, frightened, and whatnot, especially by magic. They should also have bad searching and perception, and awful disarming.

I'm thinking you should make a race like, well, a stereotypical giant - a crazy melee powerhouse, but very vulnerable to anyone with an ounce of magic or deviousness about them, and permanently awful with magic themselves.

[Derakon]

I would say that the entire point of this race is to make for characters that can survive even when aggravating. It helps make the late game much more challenging, which in turn makes up a bit for the absurdly easy early game.

[will_asher]

You might also try the umber hulk race in DaJAngband. They have pretty similar stats/skills (though not as extreme), automatic tunneling, confusion attacks, RES_CONFU, AGGRAVATE, and IMPACT blows.
(and BTW DaJAngband has tiles)