Print

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

[Frumple]

Agreed in general on the skald name. There's... not really any other tie in to the norse thing in crawl. At all. At least that I've noticed. The closest might be berserkers, but... not really. So it's kinda' (completely) out of left field.

But we have player cats and 2 armed octopi in crawl now, so whatever. Just wait. It'll end up with a monster list looking like something out of Furyband. Beware the gachapin¹ and the mighty unique Barney, great white purple killer of the mid game!

¹Actually looked up what a gachapin is. They're kinda' terrifying. Imagine one the size of a small giant trying to eat you.

[nenjin]

I always end up hoping changes like this spell better things in the future, but I just never really know with Crawl when it comes to classes and races coming and going. I don't mind Skald, I just am always sad when it comes at the expense of something else. Names are trivial but it goes to flavor and there's a wide gap between Religious Crusader and Nordic Bard.

[Bitoru]

OH NOES, THEY TOOK MY VICTORY DANCING AWAY!

[baruk]

Agreed in general on the skald name. There's... not really any other tie in to the norse thing in crawl. At all. At least that I've noticed. The closest might be berserkers, but... not really. So it's kinda' (completely) out of left field.

Well, Nethack has valkyries...

There's a presumption here that an RPG naming convention for character classes actually exists, and that stepping outside those narrow bounds is somehow a bad thing.

[G-Flex]

I don't really care about them stepping outside the bounds of convention. I care about the name not making any sense.

Of course, the problem is that nobody's suggested a better name.

[Soadreqm]

For alternate names for a character who can use both spells and melee weapons adequately, look up "battlemage" on the knowledge bot.

[Kay12]

Some interesting stats about which monsters in 0.8 killed the most people during the tournament that occured in may :
http://crawl11.dyndns.org/killers.html

This is actually amazingly interesting.  For instance, this tells us that The Royal Jelly kills fewer people than Zombie Megabats.

That's cause no one in the tournament was crazy enough to try to fight it.

or maybe because usually the top killer monsters are low levels killers. take the snake, i suppose it was due to poisoning more than for anything else. and at low level, if you're not immune to poison, you're for a painful death. (if you don't have high hps, high poison resistance etcetera) and obviously you can get ganked by hobgoblins. lot's of them.

Snakes are tough even without the poison. The damage is enough to pwn spellcasters and they're fast.

Ooh, just updated my trunk version. We got skalds instead of crusaders now? Whats with the rename?

I agree that "skald" may be a bit bad, but "crusader" was really a bit misleading. I'd go for "battlemage" because that describes their initial setup quite well - they're fighters supported by magic.

[Krath]

Hobgoblins are the highest ranked killers?

I mean, I can understand snakes, definitely, and I can really understand Gnolls and Orc Priests but...Hobgoblins?

Hobbies, Kobolds, and Goblins I don't think I've ever died to, except maybe a few times where I get mobbed and they get the last hit. Kobolds can be annoying since they actually occasionally get branded weapons and ranged equipment, but it was never really dangerous.

I tend to die when Orcs start appearing though. Very, very often.

[breadbocks]

Think about how fragile half the class/race combos are in the first floor or two. In those two floors, you get hobs out the ass.

[Kay12]

Spellcasters may run out of luck. That's when hobgoblins shine. Rarely does any wizard of mine fall to the blades of orcs though, for at that point they are strong enough to handle orcs...

[baruk]

I don't really care about them stepping outside the bounds of convention. I care about the name not making any sense.

Of course, the problem is that nobody's suggested a better name.

A skald is a norse warrior poet, right? It makes sense to me that he would have a book of war chants. Crusader is more of a stretch - the name doesn't suggest a spell-user, if anything it sounds like another worshipper of the Shining One.
Battlemage is really uninspired, because it could pretty much describe any hybrid class. It has no specificity.

[Kay12]

Battlemage is really uninspired, because it could pretty much describe any hybrid class. It has no specificity.

I disagree there, at least my mental image of a battlemage is pretty similar to the crusaders/skalds of Crawl - their principal mode of combat is offensive melee supported by magic.

[debvon]

I don't understand the fuss about what the class is called. I think we should be discussing the actual change to the class. Berserker rage, silence, and haste have all been sapped from the crusader and replaced with "make this class harder to play" spells. I mean I can understand something like berserker rage being removed/replaced, and to some extent haste as well. But is there really much strength left in the class without something solid to push off from? In my opinion Shroud of Golubria is just pathetic. The amount of mana it takes to maintain regeneration and your brand(s) is one thing, but from what I've experienced the shroud breaks constantly even at medium strength. It's something that a wizard or elementalist might want to have, not a hybrid. It's just too fragile, and keeping it active during difficult situations takes way too much mana/time. I know that it breaks when a hard hit lands, but then what's the point? Why do we need protection against soft-hitting creatures?

I don't know, has anybody taken a Skald through the game yet? I struggled my way through the lair with one but it was just not fun, not like the crusader used to be. Even at that point in the game the shroud is kind of silly. Maybe I'm just not looking at this in terms of necessary game balance. Was this change necessary?

[Robsoie]

Anyone played a long enough time with the new training system ?

[breadbocks]

I can totally understand the removal of Berserk Rage. It gives all the OPness of berserk without having to commit to the annoying crime of abandoning Trog late game when he becomes useless.

Also, I've come to the conclusion that the hardest class to play is EE, for the simple fact that no race has good aptitudes for it.