I just had a 4 dungeon level success (my furthest...) with a human "death knight" (melee talents, high intelligence for frequent talents, 3 magic for animate dead). I found a +1 flail and enchanted it with scrolls, got shield bash and used spiked shields and elemental blade (?) talent. Key talent was lone wolf for +2 all attributes, since I'd have my undead horde to assist me anyway. It was LOTS of fun to play with! What a blast! The problem is, I believe this playstyle is only possible with a human. This makes the game race-ist
. In a game with colorful races to pick from, especially from a game with a well done classless system, I have grown to expect being able to pick whatever race I want and mold it with talents. It really surprised me people didn't prefer humans! (Tip: just remove your armor to prepare your undead horde, then don your plate armor again
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Yes, that's exactly what I meant, "flaws", such as losing 1 body (or 2) to gain 1 talent points, or losing a racial trait such as darkvision, to get another talent point, you get the idea. I feel like the more easily customizable the character you want to play, the more interactive, the awesomer. To prevent abuse of these "talents/flaws", they'd have to get progressively aggressive; "blink tic" from Qud that randomly teleports you against your will, amnesia that makes your character forgot some parts of the map after some time, schizophrenic that makes your character hear and see things in the fog of war that aren't really there, phobias (just like DnD rangers' hated enemies) for creatures that make you weaker against them, or if taken multiple times, forces you to flee if you fail a spirit save.
Oh I have lots of little ideas floating around my head, glad you've asked! So, I haven't been able to go past level 4, but from what I've seen so far an overwhelming majority of creatures are "evil", thus making the unholy enchantment or related roleplaying/alignment concepts obsolete. You automatically have to play as a selfless hero, not a selfish villain (mind that this is what I feel from my impressions so far, might be completely false; still felt like would be valuable feedback), because even if I go out of my way to swarm a recruitable character's room and murder him for his gear, I get no experience. I can't make deals with devils, I can't seduce/recruit demons, I can't use a talent that is essentially an "animal friend" talent for undead creatures, etc.
-Other playable races
I personally find great joy in games that let me beat difficult enemies to unlock them as playable characters in a later playthrough. I feel like this game has a great potential for it, because we already have goblin and kobold kings and leaders that could issue us those unlocks. Let's say you unlock the goblin race. Sure maybe it won't be as strong as a human, but no goblin will be hostile to you, and any goblin you see will be recruitable! With the caveats, perhaps, of not being able to recruit "normal" recruitable characters (this race has the "weak but numerous theme after all), being automatically hated by all races (myconids & elephants automatically hostile) etc. all that good stuff. I was going to suggest deep-races such as deep dwarves (duergar), deep gnomes (forgot the traditional name), illithids, myconids as playable races or as enemies, but I've seen spoilers of some of them existing, although I'm not sure which ones specifically.
-New talent ideas
Animal Friend for undead creatures. Possibly for a lot more creature types as well.
Hated Enemy or however you wanna call it, just like the typical DnD ranger feat that gives attack and damage bonuses against a chosen race.
Metamagic talents, which improve specific aspects of spells cast after the said talent being activated (range, damage, area of effect), at the cost of stamina
Either a talent that lets you use your HP pool as magic fuel instead of stamina (Blood Ritual for example), or a seperate set of talents that use HP pool as resource (Blood Magic).
Extra 1d5 HP per a tough monster's skull (kings, bosses, adventurer party leaders, special characters) you carry with you.
Right to gain 1 kill contract per dungeon level from carillo tavern, which pays money (I'd say about 200 gold) to use in the store. Possibly spawns an extra difficult mob into the current dungeon level after contract is accepted.
Cleave talent, which gives you a free attack roll as soon as you kill something and still got another thing to hit next to you.
Language talents, that give you the chance to talk to the specific race you learnt the language for, and get to roll dice to convince it to join you or cease hostilities at least; maybe show you its personal stash! This could also go hand-in-hand with the ability for players to not understand what goblins speak for example, without knowing their language first.
-Other suggestions
Altars and Gods would be amazingly awesome to implement for this game.
A very barebones quest system would give more life. What I have in mind is the goblin king giving you a "slay this adventurer on this floor" quest if you are playing as a goblin, which spawns a rather buff random adventurer and maybe a small party of them, and if you succeed you get to gather more goblins to help you in your goblin dungeoncrawling. Or a bounty-hunter talent that gives you contracts in the tavern in Carillo once you visit them for each dungeon level. This could be integrated to a race just like that merchant race you got in Carillo; a bounty-hunting race that exist for the hunt (Predator franchise comes to mind). Another talent would be extra 1d5 HP per a tough monster's skull you carry with you, for example.
That's all for now. I don't know how well received fan ideas are for a dev, but if you'd like more I can always spawn more of these. Hope you like them!
