I Can Haz Tr3sure Hunt?- Suggestions for a Gamist Sequel

[Alfryd]

This is sort of a random cross-section of the full monster forces from the period- I might try to clean them up and categorise things properly later:

Rustherd: These strange, ant-like creatures accompanied the rustpitters from Fey, and tend to them like a flock. Sprays acid from abdomen if threatened.

Rustspitter: Resembling a bizarre cross between a kangaroo, star-nosed mole, aphid and housefly, rustpitters eat nearly anything and defend themselves using caustic stomach juices. They secrete honeydew, which the rustherds collect for food.

Grey Shade: Fallen warriors that wander the underworld, trapped by the trauma of their deaths and unable to seek new life. Resistant to weapon damage and the elements, they are best undone with healing magic.

Shadowbeast: Prehistoric animal species hunted to extinction in aeons past (also found only in the underworld.) -mostly harmless, but fight if provoked. Can't be permanently killed, because they can't be reborn.

Barbarian Medicine Man: Tribal elders skilled in the arts of healing and battle-magic, their staff functions as both a sacred totem and test of physical fitness. (Purely-coincidental-but-significant resemblance to the future wizards of ardania.)

Barbarian Huntress: War-parties of Braves often leave camp behind for months, obliging the womenfolk to hunt and guard in their absence, and many have become highly skilled in such arts. Can summon an animal-spirit companion.

Troll: Dispensable shock-troops of the goblin armies, trolls are the fruiting body of a teratogenic fungus that grows upon communal trash-middens. Possess total regeneration, resistant to piercing weapons and critical hits.

Aberration: Perhaps the greatest of Scrylia's crimes was that for every successful crossing of man and serpent, there were a dozen failed experiments. Those few that managed to escape death now lead bitter lives in the wilderness, shunning both their creators and kin.

Goblin Cleaver: Low-ranking grunts with more enthusiasm than skill, cleavers are extremely vain, sporting outlandish hairstyles and wielding preposterously largee weapons. "Mine is bigger than yours!"

Gatekeeper: Guarding the ways between Fey and the mortal world, gatekeepers are subtle support casters, rarely seen. Superficially immobile, they can 'teleport' themselves and nearby allies between nearby forested locations.

Daemonwood: Ancient and wrathful tree-spirits that remember the first birth of man. Vulnerable to fire, resistant to force and blunt weaponry, immune to nonlethal damage.

Medusa: Rank-and-file of the serpent legions, combining melee combat with light battle-magic. Medusae can reproduce by parthenogenesis, allowing their numbers to expand rapidly under suitable conditions.

Goblin Boiler: Diminutive potion-makers and alchemists, also skilled in screaming bloodcurdling curses at the enemy (more bark than bite, but at least some are genuine magic.) As a final trick, can spawn trolls from her cauldron (though they won't last long.)

Goblin Warlord: Goblins who survive the trials of combat to become dominant leaders can grow to astonishing size, but never lose their taste for flamboyant weaponry: in this case, breathing fire upon the enemy.

Nymph: Close cousins to dryads, nymphs dwell directly within trees and act as both spies and healers, using electric magic when cornered. Usually shy, retiring creatures, many have now crossed over from Fey following the Witchking's invasion.

Sprite: Capricious and largely malevolent creatures with more curiosity than sense, sprites are physically delicate, expert thieves, and passable illusionists.

Fungal Thrall: These unfortunate souls have been possessed by a species of parasitic fungus, and now live only to pass the Witchking's plague onto those they encounter. Vulnerable to fire, they are better dispatched from a distance.

Obelisk: Another underworld denizen, Obelisks represent ancient warding enchantments that have, over many long ages, granted a form of crude sentience to their substrate (i.e, giant floating rocks.) Similar in many respects to elementals, they guard their territories with potent offensive magic.

Harpy: Another of Scrylia's favoured minions, harpies act as aerial scouts and skirmishers ahead of the main ranks of the serpent legions, and have a naturally inquisitive frame of mind. (Kinship to dragons makes them extremely long-lived.)

Chameleon: Equipped with poisonous claws, tough scales and superb dexterity (both climb and swim,) the chameleons alter colour to match their surrounds perfectly, making them prime raiders and ambush soldiers for the serpent army.

Hydra: A hulking, serpentine monstrosity with total regeneration, acid for blood, the ability to breathe ice, fire or lightning, and a severe case of multiple personality disorder.

Creeper: Diminutive relations of the daemonwood, creepers represent the less-noticed but equally long-lived woodland plants that spread themselves by budding 'offspring' from their roots: if killed, they may simply split into two or more new creepers.

Dryad: Known for their cold hearts and devastating beauty, dryads are otherworldly creatures that sacrifice mortals to the Goddess Fey. -rarely fight directly, but charm enemies or summon weaker beasts (e.g creepers) to fight.

Barbarian Brave: These pallid northern tribesmen were driven south by the bitter winters of the past wars, and aim to carve out new lands for themselves. They are savage, uncompromising warriors which neither seek nor offer quarter, and surprisingly stealthy for their size.

Pureblood: This strain of Gorgon takes great pride in it's total absence of human limbs, relying instead completely on the mastery of sorcerous arts for which they have been especially bred and relentlessly trained. They hold other humanoids- especially humans- in contempt.

Changeling: Of all the Witchking's agents, few indeed have proven more deadly than the changeling- perfectly copying the voice and appearance of a chosen victim over time, they betray the enemy from within, spreading lies and disinformation among the human resistance.

 

[Alfryd]

Big Monster Is Big. Elder dragon (and human, for scale.)

Sometimes, you run into monsters (such as the Elder Dragon, Rock Golems, Tundra Giants, Evergreens, etc.) that are simply too damn big for the term 'hit points' to apply: they can pretty well kill you with one hit and won't even notice a swordstroke- period. Monsters this immense are essentially mobile aspects of the landscape, and each has a particular multi-stage method of being defeated (a la shadow of the colossus.) You can't block/parry such monsters' attacks, so heroes just have to jump out of the way of descending claws or flaming breath and distract the damn thing long enough (courtesy of aggro dynamics) for others to get in close, climb onto it's back, and otherwise take it out the hard way.

 

[Alfryd]

Well, I guess I'll try to finish up this thread (for my own part) with a few closing posts.

The first thing I'd mention is that it might be interesting to have a strong system of elemental damage types that vary in effectiveness against different enemies: fire, cold, lightning and force respectively (nothing terribly original, but it would add substantially to variety in tactics.)

Light/fire/heat damage would be the most straightforward. Anything that can catch fire- such as cloth/leather armours, or daemonwood and other vegetable minions- will take additional damage over time, and could spread the flame to other enemies or objects (such as trees.) Fire can be very unpredictable, and many monsters (such as Naiads, Golems and Reptiles) are either immune or partly resistant, but it does the most overall damage.

Cold or ice damage, conversely, is particularly effective against serpents, but plant-based enemies and golems are resistant. It slows enemies down and weakens them, and can be used to deal part nonlethal/fatigue damage- quite useful for taking prisoners. Critically, it can be used to shape the environment to your advantage- creating walls of ice or patches of frozen ground, for instance, and ice shards make lethal ranged projectiles. Cold/ice is, importantly, relatively reliable and easy to control.

Lightning damage has a few interesting effects: Firstly, it deals indiscriminate bonus damage when cast into water, and secondly, it has a chance to cause critical hits- e.g, instant death/incapacitation. It also completely ignores armour and is very difficult to dodge. Electric magic is also easy to 'store' or 'charge' for later use- perhaps as a static bonus on a melee weapon, discharging upon contact- and can be used to create magnetic 'forcefields' for defence (particularly against metal weapons and from range.) However, it's energy cost is high, it's damage is quite variable, and anything not obviously fleshy is probably resistant to it.

Lastly, force/air/wind damage. Force damage represents actual kinetic energy imparted in shockwaves through air, cannot be resisted or counterspelled except by other force spells, and is the best at wrecking up big features of the environment- e.g, smashing through walls- but can also lift or throw opponents backwards or sweep them along a desired direction, which makes it crucial for keeping delicate heroes safe and general crowd management. Force spells are cheap and few enemies can avoid them, but (except against golems and other 'brittle' foes) do little direct damage.

Also, since you're dealing with a relatively early period in ardanian history, you might actually have a graduation between Stone, Bronze and Iron weapons, with bronze being the norm, iron hard to come by (but effective against Fey) and steel fabulously rare (an exclusive product of the dwarves.) Still, stone and bronze could have their benefits (since they don't interfere with arcane spellcasting, and don't attract lightning damage.) Nevryl (a semi-magical alloy present in the crown of sydrian) could represent the very top tier of materials.

 

[Alfryd]

The Underworld and Raising The Dead
One difficulty with this period is that, since the Godesses of Life and Death (agrela and krypta) are both very young at this point, resurrection magics are still largely unknown. So, an interesting feature would be to be able to raise the dead by voyaging in person to the underworld and making some form of exchange or bargain for the soul of the departed. The underworld also allows you to include undead in the setting (they can't exist in Ardania proper, since the liche queen is recorded as the first observed specimen,) and possibly arrange encounters with famous personalities from the even-more-distant past (such as Brashnard, Dorga Stoneback, Styx/Stones, etc.)

Mercy and The Paladin Code
Finally, there is one point in relation to Sydrian's story and role-play that I feel obliged to mention: Sydrian and his knights are supposed to be the inspiration for the paladin's code of conduct, so that the game needs to include some viable method of treating others with mercy and compassion.

One way to do this is simply to script this into the story. This could work, but I think there should also be built-in game mechanics to support this style of play- the ability to deal nonlethal damage, for example, so that you can take opponents alive, rather than killing them. Over time, you might be able to use prisoners of war to negotiate a truce or alliance with previous enemies, and enemies might even be willing to surrender to your authority if you build up enough of a reputation for clemency. Helping a neutral 3rd party might also win you converts to the cause.

The opportunity for conversion/alliance is probably clearest with the Barbarians and Dwarves, (but bear in mind that the minions of the Witchking and Scrylia herself are by no means uniform in their loyalty, nor are the goblins.) One could imagine, for instance, a map where the player is under assault by Barbarian forces, and if Sydrian can convince them to agree to a peace treaty here, they would come to his aid in a subsequent mission (possibly much later.) Aiding one group might alienate others. The player might have to choose carefully which forces are worth allying with, when it's simply less trouble to just cut through the opposition and take no prisoners, and when you simply need to mind your own business.

If you wanted to imagine an open-map kind of play, where you have a series of linked towns/locations that can be freely visited during the campaign, it's easy enough to imagine different towns coming under attack, and Sydrian having to decide which to relieve: should he strike out at enemy bases immediately, and trust to the local garrison to hold up? Should he offer aid to a former rival, under siege, in hopes of winning their trust? What if winning the loyalty of a town full of Helia-worshippers sours relations with devotees of Lunord? Sydrian desperately needs to win the loyalty of his people and maintain morale if he is to attract enough heroes to wage war successfully, but he also needs to strike deep into enemy territory to gather vital information and keep his enemies occupied with hit-and-run attacks: striking the right balance between offense and defence could be crucial to the progress of the campaign as a whole. This is where tough moral decisions on the part of the player come in- shall all stand or fall as one, or do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Is a good offence the best defence, or are allies- and innocents- too scarce to abandon? Sydrian has to be an efficient warlord, but he also needs to be a hero to his people.

Finally, I should also mention that Sydrian's story contains a few fairly brutal elements: his entire family are destroyed along with his hometown, two dozen of his best knights perished claiming the chalice, and he apparently ends his days as a wandering madman. It's a story of victory, but victory at great cost, and his tale does represent the single darkest period in ardanian history. I think, if the devs decide to cover this period, and Sydrian's life in particular, then the story needs to be treated with considerable caution, because by all appearances, it's not quite as light-hearted as previous installments in the series, and should be respected as such. That's not neccesarily a problem, but I think it should be borne in mind.

 

[Draxynnic]

Also, since you're dealing with a relatively early period in ardanian history, you might actually have a graduation between Stone, Bronze and Iron weapons, with bronze being the norm, iron hard to come by (but effective against Fey) and steel fabulously rare (an exclusive product of the dwarves.) Still, stone and bronze could have their benefits (since they don't interfere with arcane spellcasting, and don't attract lightning damage.) Nevryl (a semi-magical alloy present in the crown of sydrian) could represent the very top tier of materials.

I presume you mean that stone is the one that doesn't attact lightning damage? I don't know the exact properties of bronze, but I'm pretty sure it is conductive, possibly even a better conductor than iron.

 

[Alfryd]

Lack of magnetism, maybe, for a partial effect? I wouldn't sweat it too much either way, to be honest. Just a suggestion.

I should mention that taking prisoners might also be a useful method of gathering intelligence or even gaining double agents, if that could somehow be worked into the gameplay.

 

[Draxynnic]

Actually, the ferromagnetic metals actually tend to be poorer conductors among the metals, although I forget the reason why. If I remember correctly, the best conductors are the copper-group metals (silver is the best, while copper is typically used because its cheap and gold because it's virtually immune to corrosion).

I'd be tempted to let either be used with magic, but you need to go down to stone and leather to avoid lightning.

 

[Alfryd]

No, you're right it seems- at least according to wikipedia. But then again, this might be more simulationism than you really need in this sort of game.

 

[unmerged(60143)]

No, you're right it seems- at least according to wikipedia. But then again, this might be more simulationism than you really need in this sort of game.

Are you patronizing gamists?! *shakes fist*

 

[Alfryd]

*sigh* ...fine. Stone weapons only, then.
My point is that strict realism/internal consistency (a simulationist priority) isn't as important here as things like power balance, tactical variety, and maintaining an appropriate degree of challenge en route to victory (gamist priorities.) I'm not saying gamists are stupid, but that they value different qualities in play.

I suppose, given I'm such a simulationist-by-habit, that I may have given a different impression in the above posts by yakking on about the sense of period, setting history and background detail, but those can be included with relatively little impact on gameplay, and this really is a style of play where the old, familiar fallbacks of hitpoints, classes, levels and XP are, by and large, perfectly okay: You don't strictly need them for a gamist playing style, but they don't harm it any. It may be the safest, surest method of going about a sequel (and could be used to incorporate the 'evil/monster' kingdoms that some people seem to be so enthusiastic about.)

 

[Draxynnic]

Well, looking at the wikipedia article, bronze does have some advantages over iron and even steel apart from nonconductivity that could be relevant in a magical world - one could use those. (For instance, bronze is corrosion-resistant, so if corrosion effects are introduced bronze may be advantageous. Lower of magnetism could also be an advantage if there are enemies that can create magnetic effects. And so on.)

It's also interesting to note that according to the wiki, bronze actually has superior tensile properties to iron (but not steel) - the supplanting of bronze with iron came because iron was more abundant (effectively, cheaper), not because it was strictly better. Steel, of course, is a different matter entirely.

 

[Alfryd]

...Anyways. Now that I think about it, there is one other gameplay mechanic that I would like to elaborate upon. Specifically, being able to give direct orders to heroes in the same party.

Step 1- Enter conversation with the hero in question. This generally requires being fairly close (particularly if you're trying to maintain stealth.) A pop-up display of the hero's abilities should appear in the dialogue panel.

Step 2- Click on up to 3 different actions/commands for the hero in question to carry out- the order in which they are specified determines their priority.

Step 3- The hero will either agree to the course of action suggested or reject it, (but should try to give reasons for refusal or suggest an alternative course. Rejection and compliance have effects upon the morale and respect of your troops- in extreme cases, you might have to punish disobedience directly.) Whatever happens, you can't try giving precisely the same set of orders twice.

Step 4- Once an agreement is reached (by fair means or foul,) end the dialogue and let the hero go about the job (whatever that is.)

An example of a set of orders you might give a hero might be: "Remain Stealthy, Proceed to the end of the corridor (where you specify in an isometric view), and Attack the guard."

Another example might be: "Proceed to the top of the hill, Wait until the shadowdancer arrives, then Cast teleport back to our home base."

Even after orders are given and agreed to, there is every chance that heroes will change their minds or adopt different tactics if the unexpected should arise- e.g, another guard appears, the ceiling caves in, etc. (Neither is this necesarily a bad thing- personal initiative is an important asset in warfare.)

Another possibility is that the player might be able to open dialogue with several heroes simultaneously, arriving at a collective agreement before any plan is executed. This allows each hero to set to work at the same time in a coordinated fashion, and perhaps gives each participant an awareness of what the other's plans are (potentially useful for coordination if the unexpected occurs.)

In addition, it may be possible to set 'general priorities' for the mission as a whole to specific heroes, such as 'keep the gladiator healed' or 'target dryads first'- these would be superceded by short-term orders, but provide a good idea of what the heroes should do when confused or in doubt as to appropriate tactics. Again, roughly 3 per hero seems a fair allowance. (And again, heroes can always override these priorities if they feel a different approach is obviously better.)


What I'm anxious to emphasise here is that giving heroes orders shouldn't simply feel like the standard select-and-left-click RTS procedure- it should be an interpersonal negotiation with room for free will and improvisation. (Indeed, part of the challenge would lie in discerning which heroes are likely to listen to what orders in what circumstances.) But for a canny commander, it could allow for a greater degree of tactical and strategic subtlety than Majesty at present affords, and a much more hands-on feel to the experience.