Merchant's potential power to call thugs.

[lan1967]

In the game merchants are able to call a group of thugs to protect their property.
Merchants as a class are relatively unprotected for battles.
Why not add them the skill allowing to call thugs/muscular dwarves depending on race at the cost of mana like for beastfighters or elementalists.
Thank you for your attention.

[Cactus]

Think of thugs simply as a mob that lives/hangs around in the vicinity of a shop anyway, and in case there is a robbery will help the shopkeeper stop the thief in hope for some money he might give them for their assistance.
How would a travelling merchant that set out on an adventure have access to such help in the middle of a dungeon?

[_Ln_]

FWIW, if you wish for a shopkeeper in any location, a bunch of thugs appear at your place and start to kick you in the face, so it's clear that magic is involved. Also, I kinda like this idea. Level 25 classpower (immunity to weather effects) seems a decent candidate for replacement.

[lan1967]

Think of thugs simply as a mob that lives/hangs around in the vicinity of a shop anyway, and in case there is a robbery will help the shopkeeper stop the thief in hope for some money he might give them for their assistance.
How would a travelling merchant that set out on an adventure have access to such help in the middle of a dungeon?
It's magic known only to merchants. Merchant summons them through teleport or some other fantastic ways.

[Cactus]

Ok, I understand. Then feel free to submit an RFE if you want ADOM to be like that :)
When I got bored of playing wizards and barbarians at some point, I was really happy that ADOM offered the possibility to play perfectly normal, simple folk like merchants and farmers with crappy unbalanced class powers. IMO, by not turning everything into a magic little fairy tale, TB has actually added epic to the game.

[GordonOverkill]

All in all I am with Cactus in this respect. I do not think that balanced classes would add to the fun of playing ADOM and merchants are definitely a nice challenge the way they are at the moment.

[lan1967]

All in all I am with Cactus in this respect. I do not think that balanced classes would add to the fun of playing ADOM and merchants are definitely a nice challenge the way they are at the moment.
If one need a challenge than he can play without using class power at all. One can do ULE as a beastfighter with a wooden club just for fun without using missiles. Do ULE as a DE Wizard without using any magic. One can play as a duelist using only missiles. After posting YAVP one can proudly add one didn't use any class powers or even one played ones own game while wearing black scarf on ones eyes.
Calling thugs is not a passive ability.

[GordonOverkill]

If one need a challenge than he can play without using class power at all. One can do ULE as a beastfighter with a wooden club just for fun without using missiles. Do ULE as a DE Wizard without using any magic. One can play as a duelist using only missiles. After posting YAVP one can proudly add one didn't use any class powers or even one played ones own game while wearing black scarf on ones eyes.
Calling thugs is not a passive ability.

Of course one could do that... or one could chose a more challenging class. I really like the fact that there are such classes which provide an extra challenge without external restrictions. Also in my eyes the special charme of farmers and merchants results from the fact that they are more or less just ordinary guys thrown into an extraordinary situation.

[lan1967]

Of course one could do that... or one could chose a more challenging class. I really like the fact that there are such classes which provide an extra challenge without external restrictions. Also in my eyes the special charme of farmers and merchants results from the fact that they are more or less just ordinary guys thrown into an extraordinary situation.

Well, serious traders are not so ordinary guys. They rarely work without security guards. Rich people sponsor or support revolutions as they can buy or sell weapons, hire hitmen, bribe generals. Casino merchant is working like nothing is going on. He could hire dozens of heroes to fight Andor Drakon trained with Garth for billions of money won but no. He prefers to sell items in highly corrupting area instead while the world is slowly drowning. I bet he wont stop his business even if after Chaos Lord turns the whole place into his realm.
Only ratling traders try to make business without any defense in dangerous pits and any cloaca of the world and of source they die like flies. I wonder there is no any rattling trader on Chaos plane selling coffins and gravestones.
Farmers have firearms to defend against wild animals and thieves. They are more healthy than city folks and make good soldiers.

[Heikki]

Summoning itself is a magical act, and as long as beastfighters are able to summon companions, merchants being able to summon thugs (muscular dwarves) makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of replacing merchants lvl 25 class power with this.

[GordonOverkill]

Well, serious traders are not so ordinary guys. They rarely work without security guards. Rich people sponsor or support revolutions as they can buy or sell weapons, hire hitmen, bribe generals. Casino merchant is working like nothing is going on. He could hire dozens of heroes to fight Andor Drakon trained with Garth for billions of money won but no. He prefers to sell items in highly corrupting area instead while the world is slowly drowning. I bet he wont stop his business even if after Chaos Lord turns the whole place into his realm.
Only ratling traders try to make business without any defense in dangerous pits and any cloaca of the world and of source they die like flies. I wonder there is no any rattling trader on Chaos plane selling coffins and gravestones.
Farmers have firearms to defend against wild animals and thieves. They are more healthy than city folks and make good soldiers.

That's another possible concept of a merchant. I still think that the current one is cooler, because sometimes playing rather ordinary guys is just really big fun. Hope they won't get turned into super-heroes (- that means: into even more of a super-heroe than any level 25 char is anyway ;-) ).

[_Ln_]

Of course one could do that... or one could chose a more challenging class. I really like the fact that there are such classes which provide an extra challenge without external restrictions. Also in my eyes the special charme of farmers and merchants results from the fact that they are more or less just ordinary guys thrown into an extraordinary situation.

How exactly summoning thugs (especially later in the game) is going to change that?

1) For balance reasons ignoring weather effects and summoning weak monsters is about the same. If this change is added, I will use this maybe once for shits and giggles and forget about it.
If anything, having crappy class powers is just bad design. I have never created an iron ration from a corpse despite having a couple of wins with farmers. It's just borderline trolling on part of TB, at least in the current version of the game (and 1.1.1).

2) Merchants and not even close to being "normal" characters. Beastfighters and rangers are normal folks who have decent training and are accomplishing everything through sheer technique and battle experience.
Merchants are able to pack things in such a way that they will carry twice/thrice what normal people can? This is nor ordinary, the explanation in the manual about "organizing things in a special way" is completely unrealistic.
Throwing random items at random critters will pacify them? Well, that seems legit.

[GordonOverkill]

1) In my eyes it's not bad design, but it adds to the atmosphere - no matter if it has any actual effect on the game or not. Summoning thugs by magical means is just a thing I wouldn't like my merchants to be able to do. Sorry, can't change it.

2) Carrying capacity is kind of rediculously high for each and every ADOM char, Merchants make no exception in this respect. Their higher capacity might be explained by the fact that they probably just got a much better backpack and other storage means. Makes enough sense for me.

[gut]

backpacks are portals into other dimensions, just like pockets are. The mass and volume goes there, the weight stays in ancardia. Using this principle, merchants can store more items in this other dimension than regular characters, as the whole merchant's guild is located there (for security reasons). Any time a merchant needs items or security, they can pull thugs or gloves of smiting -1 out of their backpacks or pockets, thus making it seem like magic, but it really isn't. The player should be able to pull thugs out of their backpacks, but never pickpocket them out of monster pockets, due to the weight restriction. Note: even if the thug has the thin and nimble and 1/10th weight corruption, the weight stays in ancardia, so it doesn't apply.

[GordonOverkill]

Convinced x-D

[grobblewobble]

I have never created an iron ration from a corpse despite having a couple of wins with farmers.
It could have been a fun skill if you got it at level 6, maybe. Or replace it with an ability to cook herbs into elven bread.


Throwing random items at random critters will pacify them? Well, that seems legit.
In some families it seems to work.