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[Zonk]

Could this be made an option in the init file?
Or perhaps, somewhat differently, becoming an hero or champion would just make the guy lazier, so he would do civilian work, just...not as often or efficiently.

I think the current system where you have to be afraid of your militia becoming too skilled is really...well, weird and harsh. Also, I don't think someone who's an exceptionally skilled fighter would object to doing normal work if he had the chance, unless he's really arrogant or something.

I DO understand that champions and heroes are supposed to be extraordinary, but still..if they had some civilian skills before becoming a champion, and maybe were legendary in that..why would they suddendly stop using it?

[Nite/m4re]

Also, you can't undraft them from royal or fortress guard.    

[Cthulhu]

The real question though, are you going to tell that plate-armored, herculean dwarf who's killed a thousand goblins to go clean the bathrooms?

I believe the joke goes, "where does an 800 pound gorilla sleep?"
Wherever the **** he wants.

[ February 16, 2008: Message edited by: Muffles ]

[Deon]

But the option to promote him to the royal guard seems intuitive for me - it should be a honor to serve the king, not the field commander.

[Deon]

Also it'd be better to be a part of personality.
Some mace lord may be too selfish to do any work, but some king-extreme-axe-fighter still may want to engrave his own castle and mine for precious gems.

[Draco18s]

I think the real issue lies in the fact that you cant order them around at all and they become lazy drunks no matter what (never leaving the dining room).

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

I think one of the main problems here is how fast skill gains are made. More often than not, this "hero" did not, in fact, kill a thousand goblins, retrieve any sacred artifact weapons from the bowels of some ancient fortress of evil and death, or anything particularly cool. He just served in the guard for 3 years, being a lout and sleeping whenever danger actually did come to the fortress, occasionally play fighting with his buddy, Urist, now and again with the wooden stick you gave him; and now he's suddenly to high, good, and lofty, to listen to anything you have to say. (And your miner, who still slaves for you faithfully, can probably still kick his ass if you take back the nifty steel suit you gave to your "hero"!)

I think nearly all skills should take longer to improve. I've said it before but I don't think that an 8 year old frontier outpost should have 10% of it's population be living legends of their respective (and often several) professions. The problem isn't your hero refusing to work but the commonality of his status. If high proficiency was really difficult to attain then you'd feel proud of your champion and just happy that you have one. (Like you probably felt wee back when you got your first one.) As it stands, the only legendaries that we really seem to covet are weaponsmiths.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Zonk]

Also, I think dwarves often actually like what they do - they get "satifisied at work"good thoughts. So, if some like applying their craft skills, why would they stop doing it once they became heroes?
Society might not force them to work, but that doesn't mean the heroes don't want to.

So, here's another suggestion: allow heroes and champions to work and allow us to change their preferences, however, make it so they give some bonus by not working. For example...

A)
Heroes who are not working or sparring can be "admired" by other non-heroic dwarves, giving both the admirer and the admired some kind of happy thought...depending on their personalities.

A modest hero would not be as happy as an immodest one at being admired. A modest dwarf might also be more likely to admire heroes. Other personality traits would also play part.

B)
In addition, heroes who are not currently working or sparring could raise morale in the dining hall by telling tales of their great deeds, assuming they did any other than training. That is, they actually killed enemies and monsters.

C)
If a a dwarf without any(or dabbling)combat skills is drafted in the same squad as the hero(possibly with the hero being the leader), he is "inspired"by his example and does NOT get a bad thought for drafting.

D)
Maybe...if you feel having heroes work is too unbalanced, the more immodest heroes might get an increasing bad thought from doing normal civilian work. "I'm a warrior! I'm not supposed to build tables and engrave floors!". However, they WOULD still do the work, maybe a bit less efficiently. Also the bad thought from working would gradually become bigger with time and work.

[Align]

Make a requirement of reaching "hero" status (rather than just high weapon proficiency) be killing a hostile unit (wildlife is not good enough). Possibly just fighting one could be enough so the whole squad who fought off that Bronze Colossus or Master Marksgoblin become champions.

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

quote:Originally posted by penguinofhonor:
<STRONG>I think skills increase at a fine rate; it doesn't need changed. </STRONG>

Example: From spring to early fall I've had 4 dwarfs who weren't even novice miners become experts.

It certainly isn't fine if you ask me, just more broken in some areas than others. I agree with the rest of your suggestions, but I still think dwarfs should have to work harder to become heroes and legends.

PS - I took karate for a whole year when I was a child and yet for some reason society fails to acknowledge my martial prowess, and insists I seek gainful employment!

[Drunken]

I dont mind not being able to make champions work but it bothers me that it gives that message when you try to assign war animals as well. My champions need their packs of war gorillas to take the hits from big angry monsters.

[Forumsdwarf]

There seems little logic in forbidding heroes from receiving war animals.
There seems little logic in forbidding heroes from changing their Service (Royal, Guard, standing army) once they become heroic.

Heroes probably wouldn't want to clean fish, though.  They may well pick out certain jobs they enjoy and perform them when "off-duty", but I much prefer the ideas some of you have thrown out about their telling stories and inspiring the other dwarves.  That seems really cool.

It would be really humorous if heroes in general believed themselves to be master weaponsmiths and spent their off-duty time trying to forge "the perfect sword" (hammer, etc.) worthy of their greatness.  That's really a human thing, though, the idea that a great warrior is supposed to forge his own weapon from freshly-fallen meteorsteel using the secret techniques of his master ... that's totally a human thing ... the Dwarf thing is to issue mandates and hammer the workers until he gets what he wants ...

Edit: nitpick: changed "having war animals" to "receiving", as that's how the hero animal restriction technically works.

[ February 18, 2008: Message edited by: Forumsdwarf ]

[numerobis]

It's a minor nuisance that you can't tell your hero to please now upgrade to plate mail and wield a +6 two-handed sword, instead having him tell you that you can't boss him around.

And then you go to the 'm' screen and set the axe champion to learning how to handle a wooden sword and they go right along with that.

[Aquillion]

Probably the strangest thing, though, is when someone who is already legendary at one job becomes a legendary fighter.

It just seems unintuitive to me that a dwarf who has made his entire life out of masonry, has put his heart and soul into masonry, has become a legendary artifact-making mason...  would suddenly give it up forever after spending a while practicing the sword.

It just seems undwarfish.