Patch with new classes

[Antoine]

Hi

I'm toying with the idea of producing a patch for V that adds new classes.

To be clear, I am not agitating for any changes to V itself - this would just be a patch that individuals could download and play with if they felt so inclined.

Self imposed restrictions:
- minimal code changes outside the edit files
- no changes to objects and particularly no new spellbooks
- none of the new classes to be easier than the V classes they are based on, and some substantially harder.

I was thinking of the following classes:
- Barbarian - like a warrior, but cannot read scrolls and has poor devices aptitude. Good melee combat, innate Regen and RCold.
- Berserker - like a barbarian, and aggravates as well. To 'compensate', innate RFear and a vampiric melee attack
- Thief - like a rogue, but with no spells, and gets penalties if he wears heavy armour. To compensate, better stealth, bonuses when attacking a sleeping opponent, an extra shot with the sling, and gets small amounts of XP from picking up gold.
- Archer - like a ranger with no spells
- Enchanter - like a mage, but much more effective with sleep/confuse/slow/scare spells and devices. Poor access to direct damage spells
- Sorcerer - like a mage, with more SP, but terrible melee/missile skills
- Healer - like a priest, with cheap access to healing spells and generally good magic, but poor missile aptitude, and gets the pointy penalty if he wields a bow or crossbow. Gets small amounts of XP for picking up gold
- Zealot - like a priest, with better melee/missile combat, but no healing spells at all. Very poor charisma, but can 'sacrifice' - gain gold and XP when destroying any item

Would anyone be interested in trying the patch, or helping to develop it?

A.

[andrewdoull]

Originally Posted by Antoine

Hi

I'm toying with the idea of producing a patch for V that adds new classes.

To be clear, I am not agitating for any changes to V itself - this would just be a patch that individuals could download and play with if they felt so inclined.

Self imposed restrictions:
- minimal code changes outside the edit files
- no changes to objects and particularly no new spellbooks
- none of the new classes to be easier than the V classes they are based on, and some substantially harder.

I was thinking of the following classes:
- Barbarian - like a warrior, but cannot read scrolls and has poor devices aptitude. Good melee combat, innate Regen and RCold.
- Berserker - like a barbarian, and aggravates as well. To 'compensate', innate RFear and a vampiric melee attack
- Thief - like a rogue, but with no spells, and gets penalties if he wears heavy armour. To compensate, better stealth, bonuses when attacking a sleeping opponent, an extra shot with the sling, and gets small amounts of XP from picking up gold.

Per Unangband, make him the only class who gets improvements to Stealth with level.

- Archer - like a ranger with no spells

Worth doing now the quiver is in.

- Enchanter - like a mage, but much more effective with sleep/confuse/slow/scare spells and devices. Poor access to direct damage spells

Unfortunately sleep / confuse / slow / scare spells are not terribly interesting except as side effects to damaging spells except in extremely limited circumstances.

- Sorcerer - like a mage, with more SP, but terrible melee/missile skills

Why are these non-fighting classes always called sorcerors? Btw: I think you can force mages to actually use spells by messing with the monster list. But I've tried to submit that already with not a huge amount of interest...

- Healer - like a priest, with cheap access to healing spells and generally good magic, but poor missile aptitude, and gets the pointy penalty if he wields a bow or crossbow. Gets small amounts of XP for picking up gold
- Zealot - like a priest, with better melee/missile combat, but no healing spells at all. Very poor charisma, but can 'sacrifice' - gain gold and XP when destroying any item

Not sure what the point of these two are.

I think you could also do something with someone with excellent device skills but no spells.

Andrew

[ewert]

Artificer, whee.

[fizzix]

no scrolls is brutal if not impossible in the endgame.

If you made it no wands/staves/rods it might be doable, but lack of TO would probably be too much of a hurdle to overcome.

[ekolis]

Interesting ideas... though I wonder what benefits an Archer would have to compensate for the lack of spells? Maybe no XP penalty, being at +0% like warriors? Then again, rangers are kinda overpowered!

[Antoine]

>> on the thief

> Per Unangband, make him the only class who gets improvements to Stealth with level.

Good idea.

>> on the enchanter
> Unfortunately sleep / confuse / slow / scare spells are not terribly interesting except as side effects to damaging spells except in extremely limited circumstances.

Why do you say they are uninteresting? Is this based on development experience from Un? Would a "slow/confuse and hack" supplemented with "sleep and run away" playstyle not be a bit different from existing V classes?

>> on the sorcerer
> Why are these non-fighting classes always called sorcerors?

I wanted to use the familiar name.

>> on the zealot and healer
> Not sure what the point of these two are.

The healer combines a couple of ideas - (a) a priest who doesn't use a Death Bow and (b) a semi-pacifist (gets some of his XP from picking stuff up rather than killing enemies)

The zealot was meant as a kind of "no selling to shops" option.

> I think you could also do something with someone with excellent device skills but no spells.

Good idea. Will add to list.

A.

[Antoine]

Originally Posted by ekolis

Interesting ideas... though I wonder what benefits an Archer would have to compensate for the lack of spells? Maybe no XP penalty, being at +0% like warriors? Then again, rangers are kinda overpowered!

I thought a lower XP penalty, and getting the extra shot with crossbows as well as bows.

A.

[Antoine]

Originally Posted by fizzix

no scrolls is brutal if not impossible in the endgame

What scrolls are most essential (and cannot be replaced by devices)?

A.

[Matthias]

Originally Posted by Antoine

What scrolls are most essential (and cannot be replaced by devices)?

A.

It depends on how "bad" they actually are with devices.

recall - Heng Berserker solves it with a class power. Might be replaced by giving a rod of recall as the starting equip, but that feels like a strange approach considering the bad at devices skill
remove curse - the Heng 'zerker can remove cursed equip without scrolls by force, again a device exists.

I won't mention escapes scrolls, while they will be the ones most missed, that is kind of the point of the class right?

[Antoine]

Originally Posted by Matthias

It depends on how "bad" they actually are with devices.

recall - Heng Berserker solves it with a class power. Might be replaced by giving a rod of recall as the starting equip, but that feels like a strange approach considering the bad at devices skill
remove curse - the Heng 'zerker can remove cursed equip without scrolls by force, again a device exists.

I won't mention escapes scrolls, while they will be the ones most missed, that is kind of the point of the class right?

I can see the sense of giving an adequate devices skill and -Recall / -RemoveCurse.

The cursing problem could also be solved by allowing the barbarian to read scrolls in town (presumably someone will help with the big words).

An alternative would be to allow the barbarian to read scrolls anywhere, but it takes 10x as long as usual ("you are a slow reader"). This would rule out the escape scrolls but allow the utility ones.

A.