Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[windalu]

An itemcorpse, yes. But they way DF works is this: The corpse is replaced by an item, but your civ still thinks its a corpse. So even if the corpse is TOOL:ITEM_TOOL_RESURRECT_WARLOCK, it will be buried in a coffin. I am not sure if you can use it in a reaction, but I can try.

can a civ member corpse be made butcherable? Make it the same way you get souls?

[Meph]

no

[Guthbug]

Well, my idea might be hard to implement.

A warlock is just a human living creature, up to a certain point. When they've mastered a certain spell or built a certain workshop, they can progress to becoming an undead lich.

When they're a normal warlock, they are subject to all the problems that any living creature has. Losing body parts, dying, eating and sleeping, etc.

But if they master these certain magical arts, they can transform into an undead lich which while not invulnerable, is impossible to permanently kill. So long as there's any controllable minion in the fort at all, they can bring the undead lich back to incorporate a new form.

It fits that "vanquished but not defeated" meme you see all the time in movies and literature.

ETA:

One way I tweaked this was to edit the raws so that the overlord caste (which never shows up on its own) is transformed into one of the undead. He gets the NODRINK, NOEAT, NOSLEEP, etc. tags and I increased his physical toughness a little bit.

My understanding of the theme of the warlocks is that everyone in the dungeon is there to serve the overlord. The loss of a minion, even an important minion like a necromancer, is not that big of a deal in the long run. The loss of the overlord is the loss of the fort though, and I don't like my epic fort dying because a kobold thief lopped off my overlord's head with a large copper dagger while he was standing by the bloodwine stockpile.

[windalu]

... the overlord caste (which never shows up on its own) ...

umm.. last week I got an Overlord caste warlock in the starting embark group. It surprised me but Therapist never lies (hopefully)

[Guthbug]

Well, he has a POP_RATIO of 1, so I guess there's always the slim chance it could happen, but you probably should have bought a lottery ticket that day.

I would suspect it's much more likely that he was a migrant from a previous abandoned fort.

[shazin]

I am no modder, but would it be somehow possible to give warlocks a unique bodypart/soul? That could than be used in a reaction to create a new warlock. ... I guess warlocks spawned this way would be new units...

One thematic problem I have with this system is that it's reincarnation as opposed to immortality. The new warlock isn't the same warlock, and I think the goal of any dead raising madman is to become permanent. If this system was to be used, some other form of immortality should be added.

Edit: But something like this could be used to troubleshoot generic "Warlock Corpse" erroneous thought generation.

[Myaso]

By the way, why the resurrection is tied to the body? Not logical to make a binding to other things? For example, when the murder megabeast appears thing associated with the essence of this creature. Think fantasy. There's every immortal foe has a bit of a vessel of the soul. Ring in The Lord of the Rings, the Horcrux in Harry Potter, etc. Sorcerer body is just a shell, if it was so important,  sorcerers would have saved body parts and not the soul. That would be fun if the kobold fortress come and steal someone's "Ring". Script resurrection certainly be easier if the resurrection did not bind to multiple remains, scattered all over the map.
curve translator, mixes all the words in sentences

[Meph]

By the way, why the resurrection is tied to the body? Not logical to make a binding to other things? For example, when the murder megabeast appears thing associated with the essence of this creature. Think fantasy. There's every immortal foe has a bit of a vessel of the soul. Ring in The Lord of the Rings, the Horcrux in Harry Potter, etc. Sorcerer body is just a shell, if it was so important,  sorcerers would have saved body parts and not the soul. Script resurrection certainly be easier if the resurrection did not bind to multiple remains, scattered all over the map.
curve translator, mixes all the words in sentences

Because the soul is hardcoded to be part of the upper body.

[Myaso]

I start a new game, and the second wave came to me with a skeleton profession herbalist, although his skill zero. And looks like a herbalist, and he has a fiery mephit.

[Guthbug]

Hrm, that undermines a lot of my ideas for trying to rewrite the warlock rez.

Protecting the few you have seems to be key. I have a special burrow I send them to when enemies present themselves. I don't call it "the danger room" but rather "the command bunker".

You can put them in a military and train them up to legendary and then armor them with the best armor you can build, but the DF combat mechanics can still screw you over. It's frustrating when the necro you've taught every spell in the game to ends up taking an arrow to the face with a lucky shot.

My last fort, every necro died and couldn't be rezzed except for the overlord. He was fine and dandy until he received some minor injury to the foot and was carried to the hospital, where all of the skeletons (ghouls had long since died) then lost sight of him, turned mindless, and wouldn't bring him water, food, or the needed crutch.

That's like the 9th reclaim on that dungeon too.

Sooner or later, every warlock dungeon ends the same way ... with your last necromancer falling to some unfortunate accident and everything else going mindless. You can keep a ghoul-only fort going almost forever, but it's pointless. There's no real advantage to it. I will usually only keep the ghouls going long enough to bury the dead so that it makes the reclaim easier.

[Meph]

I plan a lot of changes, but you probably havent seen the posts, because I made that list a few months ago. I have a large warlock update brainstormed, just need to write the code.

[Guthbug]

I plan a lot of changes, but you probably havent seen the posts, because I made that list a few months ago. I have a large warlock update brainstormed, just need to write the code.

Yeah, when I returned to the game I didn't go back months and mine the old posts ... I just picked up with the current conversation.

They aren't really "broken" in any significant way, they're just very, very hard. Much harder than the other races, which I find to be strange since they have the potential to be so uber.

I think a big part of it is dungeon design, which is challenging. You need to be impenetrable and keep your warlocks safe in the inner depths behind a lot of traps and monsters, but you also can't wall yourself off exclusively because you need meat and souls.

And for whatever reason, the enemy shows up in HUGE numbers. I've had over 200 invaders show up in one siege. That's a lot of freakin' elves to deal with for a fort with only 20 entities in it, only 2 of which are truly sapient.

So I'm considering having two levels of trap-filled horror with a single path through it ... then a minion level where your ghouls and skeletons do their thing, and then a grand level where your actual necromancers are burrowed and they do their little thing.

Luckily I have this as a guide ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Horrors

[Meph]

Suggestion:
Replace prisoner creatures with prisoner tools.
This means easy control of torture reactions.
Can be released to spawn the creature.
Can be used to gather more info, but destroys the tool.
Can be butchered to make bones/meat/soul/scalp.
Can be bisected to create more tools: 2legs, 1head, 2arms, 1 torso.
These individual parts can be used to "build" special pets or civ members.
 - Thrulls, civ members with random bodypart mixes.
 - Fishing pets.
 - Igors, medical-skill civ members.
 - "Repair" Ghouls.
 - Improve Ghouls, like double headed ones. Or add an extra arm.
 - Warbeasts, like 4 armed guard zombies.
 - Scout like "Screaming heads", use bodyless head as early warning system.
 - Animated arms and legs running around, because why not.
These bodypart tools could also be butchered for bone/meat.

Following new civ members:
 - Zombie. Learns no skills, acts as hauler.
 - Thrulls. Specifically build Ghouls.
 - Igors. The medical helpers.
 - Lich. A magically able skeleton type.
 - More Warlock castes.

Vampires are not very... neat. It seems it is too hard to micromanage them in their current state, so I will either remove or alter them. Suggestions for more Warlock types are more than welcome.

will increase the rate of Warlocks though.

Warlocks could get a ranged spell.
Witches a slow/paralyze spell.
Summoners make Mephits once a year (normal Warlocks wouldnt create them anymore)
Sorcerer gets three minor starting spells. Support, mostly.
Enchanter creates a random, magical item/weapon/armor. (free once a year, like Mephits)
Necromancer buffs zombies/ghouls/skeletons around him. (good military leader)

Thats six castes, with different abilities. Ranged, melee, AoE, Support, Creature creation and item creation. Sounds good so far?

I could buff whip-weapons. They had been nerfed because vanilla whips are lightsabers.
 I could add a frenzy ability from drinking blood/bloodwine. Would give it more uses.

A "ground all flyers" reaction in the orrery.

[Guthbug]

I need to go check my fish traps real quick down by the pond, but at first glance that looks awesome. Will comment in more detail shortly.

[Meph]

I need to go check my fish traps real quick down by the pond, but at first glance that looks awesome. Will comment in more detail shortly.

Hehe, most people here will assume you talk about DF fish traps.