Quest to kill Jharod the Healer
issueid=1388 12-07-2012 04:59 AM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by Dogbreath: 74
Quest to kill Jharod the Healer
Make the quest from Hotzenplotz to kill Jharod available without talking to village elder.

Playing a Chaos Knight, I noticed it's impossible to generate either the VD or the DD due to neither the village elder nor the druid wanting to talk to you. Which is fine (it makes sense), but you can't generate the quest to kill Jharod without talking to Rynt. My suggested improvement would be to make the quest available from Hotzenplotz *without* getting the quest from Rynt, but keep it mutually exclusive from the Druid's quest. I.e, if you get the quest from Hotzenplotz, then the druid will *never* give you the black druid quest (even if you convert to another alignment), and if you get the druid quest first, Hotzenplotz will never give you the quest to kill the healer.

You could make it so, say, Jharod is always generated hostile towards chaotically aligned Chaos Knights, so there's no means of rescuing the Carpenter.

This is a balance issue, but also because I dislike having to change my alignment to N to do an obviously chaotic quest.
Issue Details
Issue Number 1388
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 7
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 10
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 21
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 28
Votes against this feature 4
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




12-05-2013 11:36 PM
Ancient Member
Did not miss healing at all when I recently first tried out ChAoS kNiGhTs. Their starting PV already makes them real early game beasts, also without healing. So my vote goes against the suggestion in order to prevent this precious class from becoming boringly overpowered.

12-06-2013 03:52 AM
Senior Member
Gordon: you could've gotten healing anytime you wanted. You just chose not to. This request is about letting the game work properly and allow chaos knights to take this quest without converting. The entire point of this quest is to provide chaotic characters a means of healing without having to convert, and hotzenploz does indeed talk to and assign quests to chaotic CKs (including this one if the Rynt flag has been tripped) so it's obviously meant to be allowed for CKs. Allowing it won't change *anything* about balance or overpowering the class, it simply allows you to play the game properly. You can still choose not to take it if you don't want to. Again, I really don't understand the "leave buggy mechanics unfixed, because if they worked properly the game is too easy" mentality. The focus should be "fix the bugs, then adjust for balance." If, say, you suggested changing it so Hotzenploz simply refused to talk to chaotic CKs then I'd disagree, but at least understand because that fixes the issue and *makes sense.*

12-06-2013 06:24 AM
Ancient Member
Again this is no bug, if you don't speak to Rynt then Jharod does not exist. That is the way it has always been. You are very wrong about this skill not making Chaos Knights even easier to play anyway. I am playing the game properly and I don't need it made even easier, so most anyone can learn to play the game properly. So, let it be. It does not help if you and me keep repeating the same things over and over.

If you want the Healing skill with a CK you can damn well do some effort in getting it. This is not some game for children. Even if it is un-intentional it is a good thing as it is.

12-06-2013 07:33 AM
Ancient Member
I'm rapidly losing my patience for this "THE GAME IS SUPPOSED TO BE HARD, GO AWAY" attitude (I can tolerate it from Soirana, but then it's Soirana; when you're on his level, give me a call back). Great, you're good at ADOM, you play the game the "right way" (insert deadspin mocking here), yada yada yada. No one cares, and it's pretty easy to make the game way harder on yourself if you want to (c.f. JellySlayer winning w/ doomed characters - if you want to struggle for a win, I suggest you try something similar). Any suggestion that could potentially, just maybe, possibly, in a world far far away make the game easier does not automatically break it or make it worse. Once upon a time you weren't great at ADOM, so you should try taking a more moderating view when thinking about suggestions.

Back to the suggestion: Apparently I've already commented on this, but I'll explicate a little. I've always thought requiring you to talk to Rynt then Hotz to get the Healer quest as a chaotic was a flawed design decision although I think it is obvious, at least in part, why it was originally implemented that way (to keep it exclusive with the Kill Keethrax quest). Hotz obviously knows where Jharod is, he can describe the way just as Rynt could. It makes perfect sense for Hotz to be able to assign you the quest to kill Jharod all by himself and I think it should be changed to this.

12-06-2013 07:55 AM
Ancient Member
@Dognbreath:

I could of course voluntarily restrict any game with any type of character. Noone's forced to do the healer quest. Doesn't change my point though: Chaos knights are already absolute early game beasts even without availibility of healing. If they got this skill in addition, they should at least be drastically nerfed on other points in order to prevent them from being extremely boring to play.
but even then, in my eyes the most exciting thing about the class is the necessitiy to take uncommon paths, especially throughout the early game. Giving them access to the ordinary starting dungeons would decrease this advantage and make them more of a "usual powerhouse". In my eyes that would be a rather sad developement, so my choice stays "no".
And finally, I think that Stingray is right when he says that it doesn't make the game incoherent. In a CK-run it just seems to be a matter of fact that there is nothing like a village dungeon or any of it's inhabitants. You talk to the guys, they don't tell you nothing about it, so it is apparently just not there... just like there is no village dungeon for characters who chose the druid quest. If you decide to take the druid quest, there is simply nothing like a village dungeon in your game... strangely nobody complains about that, although it's practically the very same phenomenon.

12-06-2013 08:13 AM
Ancient Member
@SirTheta This is not about me being good or wanting challenging games, which I do want, make no mistake. That is why I exclusively play challenge games. This is about giving a class easy access to a skill they shouldn't easily get and that is a moderate view.

Why is none of the proponent arguing the real issue at hand, except _Ln_ that made an attempt, but then became agitated and unfortunately left.

12-06-2013 08:13 AM
Senior Member
Gordon: you're mistaken - the druid dungeon and the VD both *do* exist for CK. And are relatively easy to generate. You just have to press "shift-O" about 200 times. Nobody complains about the DD *because there are no chaotic quests related to the DD!* Whereas Hotzenploz *does* talk to chaotic CKs, and *does* assign them both quests. He assigns the sheriff quest right away, ans if you convert to N, talk to Rynt, and convert back to C, he assigns the healer quest too. Yes, *he assigns the healer quest to chaotic CKs.*

I feel like a broken record, but I think this intense backlash against any change that makes the game easier, despite the fact that it's actually fixing a bug, is severely misguided. If fixing this makes the game easier, then fine! Suggest a way of fixing it that *doesn't* make the game easier then! Don't rely on bugs, quirks, and illogical behavior to impose an artificial difficulty.

12-06-2013 08:20 AM
Ancient Member
But there are neutral/lawful quests related to the druid dungen... untill the point where you accept the healer quest. Why? Because the village dungeon and druid dungeon exist exclusively. If there is the one, the other is not. I am not talking about chaotic chars in general. When you start the game, you've got the chance to decide which of the dungeons exists... and also which does not exist. With a chaos knight you've got the same choice, at least for one of the dungeons. Your decisions decide if the village dungeon exists or not... just like it is the case for every other character. Your mistake is that you expect something to be there although you have never ever seen any evidence of it's existence within a specific virtual universe.

Broken record statement should hopefully not have much to do with my comments. At least I think that I name good reasons for my opinion.

12-06-2013 08:21 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Dogbreath
the druid dungeon and the VD both *do* exist for CK. And are relatively easy to generate. You just have to press "shift-O" about 200 times.
This is the point some people keep missing. Chaos knights can already get healing quite easily. They just need to do illogical things for it.

Repeatedly sacrificing 1 gold has become much easier too, now you just have to keep the '.' button pressed for 1 minute.

edit: cross posted with your last post, Gordon. Of course, if this is implemented, a chaos knight who kills the healer should no longer be able to take the druid quest.

12-06-2013 08:22 AM
Senior Member
FWIW, stingray, I don't even know what you think the real issue at hand even is. Game balence? Keeping your favorite bugs in the game? You keep accusing me of being a crybaby, and wanting to make ADOM a children's game, and have made quite a few baseless accusations that have nothing to do with anything I've said or promoted, so you can understand why I'm not interested in arguing about things that don't actually mean anything to me. My goal in promoting this (indeed, my goal since I first invested in the ressurection) has been to help make ADOM *better*. My which I mean, bug free, logical, and internally consistent, as well as more refined and content rich. Why? Because that makes it more enjoyable. If you want to make it more challenging, I highly reccomend you find a more constructive way than hijacking discussions to call people crybabies.

12-06-2013 08:24 AM
Senior Member
Gordon: broken record relates entirely to Stingray. :) Not meant for you.

Also, read my RFE. Taking the hotz quest would make the Druid Dungeon inaccessable and vice versa. Already covered it.

12-06-2013 08:27 AM
Ancient Member
logical, and internally consistent
Once again: It definitely is not illogical not to get access to a place of which's existence you have never ever got even the smallest piece of evidence. And this is without any doubt the case for a chaotic Chaos Knight.

If we can agree on that (, which I somehow hope), than we could go on to the arguements of gameplay, and there I would definitely find it really sad if this change would be implemented. With most character classes you can take your used routine to get through the early game and as an experienced player you have a rather good chance to succeed. Still most classes play rather simmilar in this respect. Chaos Knights (the way they are now) force the player to break this routine and go completely different ways. In my eyes that's maybe the best thing about the whole class! It just makes them extremely interesting to play for me. So I'd really not like to see that feature getting changed because of a "logical" problem, that at least in my eyes is no problem at all from the perspective of your single character.

12-06-2013 08:29 AM
Ancient Member
My proposal is that CKs die when converting. Unless they maybe get redeemed.

12-06-2013 08:31 AM
Ancient Member
My proposal is that CKs die when converting.
I would actually like that! So a chaos knight would need to use an AoLS in order to successfully convert! That would be an epic quest, well worth of granting forgiveness to a lost sould :-)

12-06-2013 08:39 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by GordonOverkill
Once again: It definitely is not illogical not to get access to a place of which's existence you have never ever got even the smallest piece of evidence. And this is without any doubt the case for a chaotic Chaos Knight.
You talk to Hotzenplotz first, you open up VD and Guth'alak will not give your PC his quest. What is wrong with this? You can even not generate the carpenter if you've gotten the quest like this.

12-06-2013 08:43 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by GordonOverkill
So a chaos knight would need to use an AoLS in order to successfully convert!
Lol...

I think it makes sense for a chaos knight to talk to the bandit boss. If they do, it makes perfect sense for the bandit boss to tell them about the annoying healer. So that's how it would be logical.

What is not logical is that you have to become lawful to convince an evil crime lord that you're the right guy to do a job for him.

Either way, for balance I don't believe it makes that much difference. Healing can easily be replaced with the candle starsign. If it would be difficult or impossible to convert, the main challenge would still be to live without ratling food, with most sources of chaos removal denied and without the dwarf quests (especially griffyard).

12-06-2013 08:46 AM
Ancient Member
@ _Ln_: Sorry, I am not sure if I got your point... I talk to Hotzenplotz first, so I get the quest to kill the sheriff. Then I open the VD (by talking to the village elder, I guess) and don't get the druid quest anymore. Don't know, what should be wrong with it? I created the village dungeon, so the druid dungeon does practically not exist in my game. I as a player know from past games that there could have been something like a druid dungeon, but from my characters point of view nothing illogical happened. My char has actually never ever heared of anything like a druid dungeon, so no problem. In my eyes it's the same with a chaotic chaos knight. He has never ever heared of a village dungeon, so why should it appear illogical to him that he cannot enter it and kill a healer of which he has also never ever heared?

12-06-2013 08:50 AM
Ancient Member
@ Grobblewobble Although ADOM doesn't give you the option to select your starsign, so theoretically only 1 in 12 chaos knight will have that blessing and the chances are good they will have a debilitating starting corruption, sounds somewhat balanced to me?

12-06-2013 09:03 AM
Ancient Member
I'm totally with Dogbreath in this one. First make things consistent and logical, then fix game balance. And the current behavior is clearly not logical.

Some of you keep talking about the proper way to play the game. Well, you know what is the proper way to play the game for me? Roleplaying. And if I have to convert to neutral and back to chaotic in order to get Healing, for totally inconsistent reasons, I can't roleplay because my character doesn't make much sense (I already have the same problem with ultras, by the way).

I'm all for the idea of killing CK's who convert and giving the possibility of surviving with an AoLS, I think that's a really cool idea. I hope that proves that it's not that I want to make the game easier. But I want it to make sense. I agree with Dogbreath that you (i.e. Stingray and Gordon) are advocating what basically amounts to a bug, because it has a side effect that you like. But it's still a bug.

12-06-2013 09:05 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Stingray1
My proposal is that CKs die when converting. Unless they maybe get redeemed.
That's a pretty great idea. Honestly, I'm very much of a thematic player (see my melee and non-combat spell only Paladin ULE for example) and refuse to change alignment as a CK - what's the point of being a Knight of ChAoS if you're not being chaotic? Another solution would be to simply make conversion impossible. (unless you do the redemption quest)

Gordon: Hotz can tell you where it is. He obviously knows who the healer is and where he lives, he can point you in the right direction. :) why should he need Rynt to give you an unrelated quest to suddenly decide he wants you to kill the healer?

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