what new race/classes would you like to see?

[Moeba]

I wouldn't mind if grey elves and high elves became one race, they don't differ too much indeed.
I disagree about spellcasters being very much like one another. Yes, priests and wizards don't differ too much, the priests' detect item status ability is the biggest difference. But elementalists are very different, look at their class powers: immunities, breathe water even, some special spells and walk through stone (like a monk). But the damage rolls on their spells are different, really (I think they increase when you lvl-up). Never experienced with a lvl 1 elementalist you had to scorch a large bat twice before it died? But when you're lvl 10 you can scorch them in one go pretty easily. I don't think they're that bad, you get spells for free and their main spells work well enough on most enemies.
And necromancers are summoners, for the creator's sake! If too many play them as pure spellcaster, maybe their spellcasting powers should be decreased somewhat. But there is always a good use for summoning powers even if you play as spellcaster, so I don't think playing necro's as pure spellcasters is smart. Druids are quite different again, mostly because animals just don't get hostile (exception of vaults and tension rooms).

[Marek14]

There's really not much reason to remove races -- once they are in there, I bet there are even players who prefer Grey Elves to High ones or vice versa.
The last two races to be introduced are interesting -- Mist Elves have their iron allergy and Ratlings are race with Detect Item Status which is very new.

Now, any humanoid race that appears in ADOM could potentially be made playable, but at this point they need some sort of gimmick to make them interesting. For example, could lizardmen be playable? Yes, but they would have to be sufficiently different from Drakelings. Various races of Giants would have to feel differently from Trolls. Hill Dwarves would have to feel differently from normal Dwarves and Hill Orcs from normal Orcs.

For example, Dark Orcs could be a race so adapted to darkness that they could actually see in it without any trouble -- but their visibility range would be strongly limited in light. They'd be extra vulnerable to light traps, like gremlins, and using light source would blind them until they put it away.

Adding a race is probably not as hard as adding a class, but still might be a problem to balance it. It could be partially resolved by adding a race in prerelease version in rough, unbalanced form, and use the feedback to "tune" it.

[Singbird]

But elementalists are very different, look at their class powers: immunities, breathe water even, some special spells and walk through stone (like a monk). But the damage rolls on their spells are different, really (I think they increase when you lvl-up). Never experienced with a lvl 1 elementalist you had to scorch a large bat twice before it died? But when you're lvl 10 you can scorch them in one go pretty easily. I don't think they're that bad, you get spells for free and their main spells work well enough on most enemies.

Yeah, immunity to weather effects. I vaguely remember one game where I got some stuff destroyed by rain or something, don't know if it was true or a dream.
Resistance to fire at level 6 is nice.
Shock resistance at level 12. There's quite little time between this and elemental gauntlets I think.
Water breathing at level 25. You have to be REALLY unlucky not to find a helm of water breathing or a ring of the fish. It is more convenient to use than either, granted.
Level 32, elemental storm. There is never a situation to use this. If you are surrounded by weak baddies, you don't need it, if you're surrounded by strong baddies, you want to use your power points to make you a way into a corridor, not blast everyone around you. Unless this power fires REALLY effective bolts. But then there's also the issue of bouncing lighting bolts.
Level 40. No idea. Could be nice.
Level 50. Nice. But... Level 50. You can use this AFTER you've dug your way to the levers on D:50. And monks supposedly can do this at level 13 or something. You cannot even pretend this is something as useful.

The damage of some (all?) spells depend on the character level, but it's feature of the spells, not the elementalist unfortunately.

I had a wizard at level 6, who had 500 castings of magic missile, fire bolt and acid bolt each. At level 6 I already had like 50% of the casting the elementalist gets to his bolt spells in the entire game.

Sadly I doubt making the existing classes more unique quite fits the project at the moment. I would certainly suggest something for elementalist otherwise.

[Stingray1]

You must remember one thing: If the weighted monster generation is fixed and attribute increases is nerfed characters will reach higher xl much faster, which is what I think TB thought would be the case. That player characters reach high experience levels long before the end of the game. You can see that in the class powers.

But people have learned to chase character attributed real high in very short time, that's why you see such a massive decline in level ups during the midgame. The monsters encountered then simply give too little experience, because the majority are still lowish DL and the player character's attributes(stats) is way up there reducing the xp even further.

[Marek14]

As for classes, I'd like to see an alchemist. Alchemists would be masters of potions -- all lower-tier potions would be automatically identified. They would get to-hit bonuses for throwing potions, maybe they could have extra alchemy recipes with 3 or more ingredients to create special elixirs. Possible class powers would be poison + acid resistance, reducing energy cost of drinking/throwing potions, protecting their potions from harm...

As for the artificer, my old suggestion, the main fun would be in creating golems out of amassed materials. Artificers could use their golems as beasts of burden, carrying materials that would be, in turn, used to create better servants.

[Moeba]

The damage of some (all?) spells depend on the character level, but it's feature of the spells, not the elementalist unfortunately

Ah that explains. Then the difference with wizards isn't that big no, except for elementalists' damage penalty.
Still I wonder at the insane increases of burning hands for elementalists. I mean, insane if you write them as percentage increases per level (it's like a dice extra per level, and starts at 1 dice on lvl 1). But I guess this is the same for all characters, but usually you don't learn burning hands at lvl 1.

I like the alchemist idea, btw. The same for the artificer, but it sounds like a lot of programming work whereas the alchemist doesn't.

[magpie]

well, there's the mindcrafter, who doesn't technically cast spells, getting bonuses from other stats and not having to read books. The last thing also goes for elementalists, for whom the damage increases per level etc.
So yes, basically they're all spellcasters, but beneath that there's a lot of differences which are still pretty big. Same for the shooters and bashers.

The new changes to Literacy have made a lot of the differences even greater.

Reading scrolls with a barbarian, say, is no longer a breeze once you've got the sulphuric potion - now you need to worry about whether that high-level scroll (SoCR, for example) is going to be wasted or not. It frustrates me, but in terms of making the differences between the classes greater, it was a good change to make.

[Nobbse]

I wouldn't mind if grey elves and high elves became one race, they don't differ too much indeed..

I agree! Similar to You don't know at the moment which kind of merchant You get by selecting one You just select "elf" and let the game decide whether You get a grey elf or a high elf (mist elves and dark elves are too different ... )


A nice Idea perhaps would be a GOLEM as a race (or class? discussable ... )

- no literacy / mana
- high willpower so not confusable
- no healing
- no talking
- no magic

- high beginning skill of unarmed combat

- but able to heal with assimilating all kind of things

(the more it assimilates clay it becomes a clay golem)
(the more it assimilates food and flesh it becomes a flesh golem)
(the more it assimilates weapons / shields / ... it becomes a steel golem)
(the more it assimilates gems ... it becomes a diamond golem)

I have to think more about it ...

[Marek14]

Nobbse: But that would be more like race+class combination since some classes (like magical ones) would be impossible for it.

The artificer idea was to build golems through simple recipes:

Bone golem: amass certain quantity of bones. To make this easier to do, vertebrate corpses can be used as well, but they only count for a certain fraction of their weight.
Clay golem: amass lumps of clay.
Crystal statue: amass crystal equipment.
Diamond golem: amass gems.
Eternium golem: amass eternium equipment.
Flesh golem: amass certain weight of corpses. At least half of the corpses by weight must be humanoid.
Iron golem: amass iron equipment.
Steel golem: amass iron equipment, but mere skill is no longer enough -- a forge is needed.
Steel horror: like steel golem, except the amassed equipment must all be bladed weapons.
Steel zombie: steel golem materials + humanoid corpse.
Stone golem: amass rocks.
Stone statue: created by animating a statue.

And other golems would be possible: mithril and adamantium ones, gold golem made from gold pieces, etc.

The other part of golem is a scroll put inside. The scroll would work as a "program" of sorts.
Scroll of amnesia: Golem won't remember you're his master and will generate as hostile.
Scroll of balance: When looked at, golem's eyes will be described as blue/green/red based on PC's alignment.
Blank scroll: Golem will be generated dead.
Scroll of corruption removal: Golem will consider destruction of chaos creatures its primary task.
Scroll of charging: Golem will try to pick wands and bring them to you, the wands will have increased charges.
Crumpled scroll: Golem will be not only generated hostile, but also several times normal strength.
Scroll of cure blindness: Golem will be immune to blindness.
Scroll of danger: Golem will be generated hostile.
Scroll of dark predictions: Golem's power will grow the more the PC's corrupted.
Scroll of darkness: Golem will be generated without eyes, permanently blind, and so rather useless.
Scroll of defense: Golem will have substantial DV increase.
Scroll of education: Golem will be capable of speech.
Scroll of familiar summoning: Golem will be absolutely loyal and won't turn against you no matter what.
Scroll of gold detection: Golem's first priority will be to move to gold (no matter where on the level it is) and take it.
Scroll of great identify/Scroll of identify: Golem will pick up and automatically identify any item it sees.
Scroll of ill fate: Golem will be permanently cursed.
Scroll of increase melee accuracy: Significant ToHit bonus.
Scroll of increase melee damage: Significant damage bonus.
Scroll of information: If golem is chatted with in Small Cave, he will tell you number of steps as if you read the scroll, no special effect elsewhere.
Scroll of item creation: Golem will get more drops from enemies it kills.
Scroll of item detection: golem will walk towards nearest item on the floor (wherever on the level it is) and take it whenever possible.
Scroll of item destruction: golem will destroy any item except artifacts it steps on.
Scroll of light: golem will work as a light source.
Scroll of literacy check: golem's power will grow with PC's Literacy score.
Scroll of luck: Golem will be permanently lucky.
Scroll of magic mapping: Golem will randomly reveal parts of levels as if it had the antennae corruption.
Scroll of monster aggravation: Monsters will prefer attacking the golem to attacking you.
Scroll of monster detection: Golem will try to move to nearest hostile monster, wherever it is, and attack it.
Papyrus scroll: Golem's power will get significant boost while in the Pyramid.
Scroll of peace: Golem will never attack.
Scroll of power: Golem's attack power increases, but its defense power decreases.
Scroll of protection: Significant PV bonus.
Ratling pamphlet: Golem will attack you if you wear furs. It will also try to attack and destroy enemies wearing furs (I guess barbarians, berserkers and cavemen?).
Scroll of repair: Golem will have faster HP regeneration.
Scroll of satiation: Golem will try to pick up any food items it sees.
Strange message: Golem will occasionally become confused.
Scroll of teleportation: Golem will have teleportitis.
Scroll of treasure creation: Enemies killed by the golem will drop more gold.
Scroll of uncursing: Golem will try to pick up any cursed item it sees, uncursing it in the process.
Scroll of vermin control: Golem will try to attack breeders, any successful hit will neuter the hit breeder.
Scroll of warning: Golem will repeat the "Time works against you" message when chatted with.

[Nobbse]

absolutely neat idea!