Dungeon Crawl Reference

Closing. Another eternal can of worms, and nothing will come out of it.

Just better.

Does Lemuel's suggestion actually make humans more interesting, or just
better?

I like Lemuel's suggestion the most: rescale apts so that humans' 100 is
better, and skip any fancy proposals, keeping humans in the "average race"
saddle.

I don't see the gameplay benefit from having "generic boring super-average"
be an actual playable race. I am pretty sure any player would understand
that 100 theoretically represents an abstract theoretical race.

If we wanted the numbers to actually mean something we could easily have
the game calculate what the actual average is across all races for a given
skill and then show the player that number. That might be more useful both
to players and to developers. Of course, that's a completely different
issue.

Suggestions like kotk's are just more complicated and less transparent ways
of improving humans' aptitudes across the board.

Just set human aptitudes to 90 in everything, or if you like the round
number 100, increase all other species aptitudes by 10, and then subtract
10 in the code when aptitudes are used.

Lemuel

The humans may be made "studious". So they start with aptitudes 100 and for
each skill level reached the aptitude goes down by 1. At skill level 5 they
have aptitude 95 and at skill level 10 it is 90.

The simplest solution is to rescale aptitudes so that 100 is relatively
better than it is now.

Lemuel

For me it's kind of a catch-22. Because the humans serve a purpose of being
the middle ground other species are compared to, any tweak to make them
more interesting should be rather small. Rather small tweaks are likely to
end up uninteresting.

If there are interesting ideas, they might best be served by coming up
with a new species. For instance I rather liked the idea about a curious
but impatient race (foxpeople), who learn new skills fast but progressing
already developed skills becomes hard.

--Eino

The only thing I can take from this FR is to encourage humans even more to
spread skills. There are various ways to do that:

a) Eronarn's virtual xp.
b) Self-chosen manual (Abraham's 1)
c) learn new skills faster (part of Abraham's 2)

Some comments: a) is too complicated for my taste. Remember that we have
to explain the mechanic to players as well.
b) does not really reward generalisation. It does reward flexibility but
of a different kind. This is why I'd rather not use that. (It's also
unlogical in that you can never lose skills elsewhere in the game.)
c) could probably be done, refering to education among humans etc (making
it easier for them to pick up new skills). This could be an xp discount for
skills up to level 5. Still not sure if that's really an improvement,
though.

I am adamant about leaving aptitudes at 100. The point of humans is to be
the species to which all others are compared. I believe something could be
done about the social aspects of human but I cannot flesh it out now and it
would probably lead into the wrong direction anyway.

kotk:

Minor favors can be the lower- or no-piety invocations, or temporary use
of passive abilities/prayer effects. Naturally it may not be appropriate
for all gods, but I think there are enough that it could be interesting.

As for the virtual XP idea, it works like so:

Humans get a bonus amount of virtual XP that is determined by their XL.
Every skill that is either untrained or training-enabled is treated as if
it had that much XP dumped completely into it. This means, e.g., when you
have Shields 0 you're treated as if you had Shields 2. This means more
effectiveness and a higher chance to succeed on actions that train. It also
means that more XP is taken from pool on each successful training attempt.
As you gain real XP in a skill, though, your virtual XP for that skill
decreases. Thus if you raise Shields from 0 to 1, your bonus that was
previously 0=>2 may now be 1=>1.5. Eventually your virtual XP for a skill
is completely depleted. It increases every time you level by the same
amount the cap is increased by, and also, it regains slowly on its own.
Each skill has its own virtual XP pool with the same cap. Thus for example,
if your cap is enough to take you from 0 to 2 skill, you effectively have 2
skill in all skills, even ones you have never trained.

-Ero

I've always been in favor of making humans cooler and more interesting.
Don't have anything special in mind right now, but suggestion 2 feels best
to me right now.

5 kinda goes against the everyman aspect of humans, 4 sounds pretty much
like 3 but I don't like it as much. 1 Is interesting too, however, but
you'd probably have to limit it somehow so it doesn't go against the
everyman aspect as well.

~Impaled

cryo:

I like it quite a bit. It would make sense to some degree that humans,
knowing they aren't the hardiest of races, would do some training before
attempting something like this.

It goes against the generalist idea, since it is even better now to stick
to your starting skills, but since these can be anything, I think that is
ok. It is kind of like how, as a graphic artist, I naturally have some
skill at it, and if I were to suddenly go out and try to be a chef, there
would be a lot more training to do.

-Tiki the Orc

kotk:
Good comments.

3. Given that there are so many other races and so many gods, I don't see
this as an issue. Already your race/class combination tends to choose your
god for you (or at least eliminate some options). But in any case, it would
be easy enough to let the player turn the skill-gain while praying off.

5. Good point. Even if that feature were available to all classes, it
still leave humans interesting. Some human-specific alternatives: a) Humans
could simply get the feature one or more skill-levels sooner than other
races, or b) different bonus-benefits might only be available to specific
races, with humans being the only race to be able to get all of the
benefits.

cryo:
I really like your idea. It would, of course, make humans better, but only
slightly so, and if the apt bonus were flat, it would favor humans going
into jobs that started with a wide variety of skills, which reinforces
their existing mechanical niche. One potential downside (or upside?) I see
is that, at the moment, starting job choice has no permanent effect on the
character, to my knowledge, while this would (at least theoretically)
affect the character through the entire game. However, it would help set
humans apart as the race where job-choice matters the most, which I think
also fits their flavor.

What if humans got a bonus of say 10-15 apt points to their starting skills
based on job choice? This keeps the 'humans are average at everything'
concept and makes them well suited to any job choice w/o being way too good
at everything. The apt bonus just reflects their training prior to entering
the dungeon.

-cryo

Humans play OK. I have looked into the code. It is interesting how simple
is to make something that almost feels like natural skill training at side
of all these "point buy" systems.

abraham:
1. Sounds nice. Problem is that the skill system is not exactly linear so
early xp from your pool gives more points into your skills and later xp
gives less and less. XP in skill is very difficult to convert/translate
into XP in pool.
2. Each human tries to be better than others in something, to fill his
social role in a best possible way. So logical would be exactly opposite.
3. That would make worshiping a god with a prayer effect difficult if you
do not desire that skill.
4. It is still simpler (and as pointless) to train redundant weapon skills
with minotaur.
5. I have enjoyed it in such games where of perks, spells or special
abilities open (or are possible to buy/learn) after reaching skill level
requirements. What is the logic that this should be human-only?

Ero:
* Interesting idea, but some minor divine favors of Xom, Kiku or Trog are
difficult to imagine.

* Interesting idea, about neutrals. Hiring adds nothing ... unfortunately
there are too tons of ways to
summon/enslave/befriend/tame/pacify/animate/raise ... just name it.

* Last suggestion is hard to understand for me. Some sort of virtual XP
that decay and regen?

tromboneandrew:

I'm confused. None of the ideas presented involve directly changing human
aptitudes, and only a few of them change the way human aptitudes work. But
your comment seems to be based on the idea that that's the main suggestion.

tromboneandrew:

"I haven't looked at the code, but it seems to me that it costs many more
experience
points to train unarmed combat from level 0 to level 2 later in the game
than in the beginning. There are other specific ways that the game
discourages diversification of skills, at least in the magics, from what I
can tell. How many different magic skills can one train before the lower
ones are penalized?"

Can this be changed or it's impossibile because the way the game is
programmed doesn't allow this? Removing or lowering this penalty to learn
different skills could adequately represent the human's natural curiosity
imho.

I don't see the need to change humans at all. They are supposed to be the
"median" race, especially as aptitudes go.

Socially, perhaps I can see humans being different, as they're supposed to
be more diverse and more populous than other races. But I don't see how
this could impact Dungeon Crawl except perhaps with a slightly better
invocations skill due to humans' better use of religion for socializing
than other species.

If you want to make humans better at being generalists, I think that the
problem lies with the game engine, not with human aptitudes. The engine
does reward training in certain synergistic skills like short/long blades,
but otherwise seems to heavily penalize diversity of skills. I haven't
looked at the code, but it seems to me that it costs many more experience
points to train unarmed combat from level 0 to level 2 later in the game
than in the beginning. There are other specific ways that the game
discourages diversification of skills, at least in the magics, from what I
can tell. How many different magic skills can one train before the lower
ones are penalized? This is NOT good for skill diversification builds.
There is already a penalty inherent in dedicating experience points between
multiple skills simply because those points aren't being used to further
develop the currently most powerful skill. There doesn't need to be more
penalties. IMHO.

I also think that aptitudes should have a lesser effect on development as
characters become more skilled. Specifically, as a character approaches
level 27 in a skill, the points needed to attain master converge to
skill=100. This way, the human can compete more effectively in the long
term with that merfolk with it's kick-ass polearms skill. Aptitudes thus
become much important for the beginning of the game than the end.

- tromboneandrew

dpeg:

I don't think that humans necessarily have to be 100 aptitude. If
anything, that should belong to untransformed shapeshifters (they're even
described as generic). Nor do I agree that they have to have no abilities.
They can't shoot fire or resist acid or what have you, but that doesn't
mean they can't have innate uniqueness that other races lack.

So, here are some thoughts:

*Human cultures are more diverse and divisive than those of any other
race. They are also the most populous. Most humans have been exposed to a
variety of faiths which they call out to as the circumstances of their
lives dictate. Adventurers are even more opportunistic than normal humans,
and have no qualms with continuing that practice in the dungeon. If they
find non-Temple altars to a god they may make offerings to gain some minor
divine favors, though at the cost of being significantly limited in maximum
piety and piety gain in all gods.

*Most uniques in the dungeon are human, many of them mercenaries or
adventurers. What if they're all part of the same guild? Humans encounter
some of them neutral, and have the option to hire them.

*Humans get a bonus to effective skill in all training-enabled skills that
works like having a virtual amount of XP added to it, in an amount
detemined by their XL. This then rapidly decays when a skill is being
trained. So at Short Blades 0, they fight as if they had Short Blades 4,
but when they reach 4 it has gone away entirely for that skill. If they
were raising Dodging at the same time the virtual XP might only be enough
to boost it to 5, and would go away independently. The virtual XP
regenerates per-skill, slowly.

-Ero

dploog:

Some interesting thoughts. Regarding your point (2), it seems to me that
that role can easily be filled by a non-existent theoretical "species"
without any loss to the game.

I think your idea about construing humans as spreaders of envy and
decadence, and banding together is interesting, but how would you express
that in game terms?

Personally, I don't think too much can be done. As I see it, there are a
few reasons to keep Hu as a player species:
(1) Presence of humans as monsters.
(2) Humans are defined as the average; this means: skills 100 (with the
bonus to Inv and the malus to Spc), stat gain, hp/mp gain, no intrinsic
abilities at all.
(3) They are flexible, due to their uniform skills.

Because of this, I am not fond of playing around with the aptitudes. Also,
gains (or losses) of, say, 10 would be too small to really matter. I don't
know if we want to go beyond that, however.

To me, (1) says that Hu has to stay whereas (2) says that most changes
won't work well. (3) expresses hope that the species may be good for
something.

If I were forced to do something about humans, I'd use the staple that
humans spread envy and decadence (to peaceful and innocent societies); that
they are very good at banding together to maim and pillage.