Give humans 3 random skills on character creation
issueid=2992 05-20-2014 11:29 AM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by shockeroo: 50
Give humans 3 random skills on character creation
A small buff to make humans more interesting, in flavour with their adaptability.

I would like to see humans start with a small number of random skills (3?) when they are generated, similar to bards.

Humans start with lower average stats and fewer skills than most other races. Whilst they're not truly terrible at anything, they're very mediocre and a bit boring. A small number of random skills would reflect their adaptability and make them more exciting to roll up.
Issue Details
Issue Number 2992
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 8
Suggested Version ADOM r48
Implemented Version ADOM r48
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 6
Votes against this feature 8
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




05-20-2014 01:16 PM
Ancient Member
Voted no. This would encourage too much tedious roll-scumming. It would imbalance many classes.

There are potentially other ways of improving humans if we want to make them more unique. Ones that don't rely on randomness. Some ideas:

- Extra talent at start
- 10% cost reduction on all melee weapons
- Give them the Courage skill (with a different reward from the old barbarian)

05-20-2014 01:26 PM
Senior Member
I like Grey's suggestion more actually. Definitely 1 and 2. What should define humans to me is adaptability and an extra talent at the start goes a little way to adapting the race to fit whatever class it is. I dunno about 3. I suppose it couldn't hurt. A lot if people don't rate courage anyway, but getting an alternative reward could be interesting (as long as it's not just the 2H sword he supposedly gives to PCs that already have courage

No race starts with healing or herbalism. If you're playing a race class combo that starts with neither of them they become mutually exclusive. Too much for humans to start with either of those 2?

05-20-2014 02:00 PM
Ancient Member
Maybe give them rather large (20+) stat potentials across the board? Or higher skill dice than normal?

I don't like the random skills either.

05-20-2014 02:03 PM
Ancient Member
In the light of recent nerfs to training it should be interesting to increase racial stat potential bonus for all stats for humans. Sure, you start below average, but you can quickly get better in all things (might, magic, dexterity).

Extra talent is kinda boring IMHO since there are already gnomes who have the same progression scale as humans. 10% more weapon marks is practically negligible in the initial game (where races actually differ). Courage is nice but more or less useless anyway.

EDIT: Drats, that JellySlayer! :D

05-20-2014 02:27 PM
Senior Member
Given that humans are meant to be adaptable, how about giving them a different extra bonus depending on which class they choose, with the bonus enhancing the class's natural tendencies? For instance, Bards could get two extra random skills, Beastfighters could get an increase in Strength (say, +2), while a Paladin might get to start the game with the Lucky intrinsic. Note that these are just examples of possible bonuses - the idea is that the bonus has to be a trait of the character, not just equipment/etc.

05-20-2014 04:26 PM
Junior Member
As human scar tissue is really quick compared to any other mammal (yeah, yeah, lacking scientific comparison to orcs and elves) so Healing skill could be a viable option.

Don't like the idea of a free talent (it's there already for others), and extra skills, well maybe max 1, but randomness belongs to bards so.. nah.

05-20-2014 04:42 PM
Senior Member
I'm glad the responses seem to feel humans need *something* even if it's not this. They're just so dull right now.

- Extra talent is in flavour for humans, but already the province of Hurthlings and Gnomes who were frankly better at most things even without the talent. Those two also share fast levelling with humans already.
- High potentials encourages grindy play and you eventually end up with humans as strong as orcs and as wise as elves, which feels wrong.

Better starting dice on all their skills might also be good. I really feel like they should have more skills somehow, hence my submission. If we gave them Healing + Concentration then they'd suddenly be super-adaptable with good HP and PP regen right off the bat; but that would be very powerful. They'd suddenly become a nice newbie race though.

05-20-2014 05:45 PM
Ancient Member
No races currently get a free skill increase at level up, right? It's based entirely on Learning and Starsign.
Could give humans 1-2 free skill increases at level up. Would be a unique racial benefit for humans.

05-20-2014 05:57 PM
Junior Member
I agree that humans need something. Their age limits and lack of talent in any specific area means I almost never play them.
The difficult part is how to not make humans overpowered. Healing is really good, but it might be too good.

I like the more subtle benefits. My vote is with increased skill increase die and maximums. I would also buff their starting attributes slightly; they are often too weak early game to function. I would say that giving them charisma would make sense lore wise, but from a game standpoint, it would accomplish nothing. Maybe humans can have an easier time changing alignment?

05-20-2014 08:19 PM
Junior Member
I don't think healing is too good. Basically it guarantees Frost bolt and a useless artifact. Others fetch the skill anyway.

Healing makes the early game easier but it evens out quite quickly.

05-20-2014 09:40 PM
Ancient Member
Black torc is a great artifact... I use it basically every game.

05-21-2014 12:10 AM
Member
Hm.... *ponders*

Well, It is my honest opinion that the Human Race is, comparatively, supposed to be a touch boring. However, is it indeed quite true that it is rather ridiculous for them to be as sub-par as they seem to be. Keeping that in mind, I would like to suggest the following, using the forumula of 7 being a lucky number for Humans:

Humans learn an extra 7% faster on weapons skills and attributes. Chances to increase stats in skills/traits are upped by a modest 7%. In effect, a Human's ability to learn anything is upped by a mere, humble, 7 percent. 10% seems a bit much to me, as the cup starmonth gives you an additional 10% chance for a lot of stuff. Meanwhile, 5%, a nice little number, feels too small to be even signifigant to be noticed, to where we may as well ignore the increase to begin with. so the number 7 seems a fair percentage in my personal opinion. I don't play humans too much, but usually because I happen to let (f)ate decide. Given that, I sometimes will specifically choose humans because they are the Marios of ADOM: Classic, well rounded, and able to be anything.

So yeah, to reflect their adaptability and versatility, I say we give them a boost to being able to learn anything learnable by 7%

05-21-2014 12:39 AM
Senior Member
I'm not too keen on (just) giving them bonuses to learning stuff. Unless the bonus is really huge it still wouldn't be much of a reason to ever pick a human.

I now quite like the idea of giving them both Healing and Concentration - the latter starting lowish and being hard to max unless dual-trained with class. Between those two they really will be good at a bit of everything and able to play any class much more freely.

05-21-2014 02:37 AM
Junior Member
I like the additional 1-2 free skill increases per level idea. It makes a lot of sense, as humans are a fairly adaptable race, and it should be fairly easy to implement. Giving them guaranteed Healing or Concentration for free doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and there are already other races that get free talents.

05-21-2014 09:17 AM
Senior Member
I don't think humans need a boost. They level quickly, get good prices in all shops, and have good potentials in all stats. I play humans all the time.

However, if Thomas decides to boost them, I think adding one random skill would be nice flavor and fun. I would prefer that to the extra talent or increased potentials.

05-21-2014 10:11 AM
Ancient Member
I never play humans. I almost never play anything other than elves though so I might be a little biased.
Humans have nothing to offer really; they have only one skill of any use that is guaranteed - food preservation - and are poor at specializing early on.
Swimming can be obtained anytime at a meager price of blessed potion of carrot juice and its usefulness is highly debatable.
Lifespan is short so you need to be careful around ghosts; they aren't too pretty so early game prices don't get the typical elven appearance boost.
My personal feeling is that chars level up too fast especially early on and that's speaking from the elven perspective.
How it works for humans that supposedly gain exp faster, I have no idea, but I would probably not like it at all.

In other words - humans offer nothing that would make them worthy to me as a race to pick. Perhaps if I was roleplaying a specific character, but I don't do that very often, as in 2-3 times during the last 15 years of playing ADoM.
Without *something* changed about humans to make them a more attractive race, I will never play them.

07-06-2014 05:57 PM
The Creator
Personally I like the idea of giving a free skill increase to humans whenever they advance. It fits the theme of adaptability. We'll test this.

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