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[Curseman]

Hey everyone,

I'm in the process of working on a roguelike.  I'm trying to come up with interesting skills, spells, and abilities for the player to learn and use, and I'd love to hear to suggestions if anyone has any.

My primary focus is on warriors.  Skills that are like an attack with +5 damage, or one with +10 accuracy, or one with +10 damage and -10 accuracy are so boring, but it's difficult to come up with something that is sensible, but still unique, interesting, and useful.  I'd prefer to have abilities that are useful in combat, even if they aren't actually attack skills (an ability to help the player run faster to get into position or escape more quickly would be good, for example).

I don't need ideas for spells quite as much, but ideas would still be appreciated.

[Xion]

You should check out DDRogue, it might have some stuff along the lines of what you're talking about, or at least give you some ideas.

You could also consider having special moves that don't involve actual movement and context like DDRogue, but that you can select or equip that just do stuff, like "Shove: push an enemy back a few spaces" or "Trip: Trip an enemy making them temporarily immobile and vulnerable to attack", stuff along those lines?

[Curseman]

You should check out DDRogue, it might have some stuff along the lines of what you're talking about, or at least give you some ideas.

You could also consider having special moves that don't involve actual movement and context like DDRogue

DDRogue is really cool (I think it was the best one out of the last 7DRL competition), but I'm going with more traditional controls.

"Shove: push an enemy back a few spaces" or "Trip: Trip an enemy making them temporarily immobile and vulnerable to attack", stuff along those lines?

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for.  Those two are already in under the names "Kick" and "Tackle," but you've got the idea.

Here, I'll copy paste some information on what I have from another thread I have going at roguetemple.com.

Tactics:
Kick: The user makes a physical attack that deals physical damage and pushes their target back.  The effect is based on the user's strength and the target's endurance.
Counterattack (Passive): Allows the user to hit back without using a turn when they dodge a highly inaccurate hand-to-hand attack.
Tackle: The user makes a physical attack that deals physical damage and attempts to stun their target.  The effect is based on the user's strength and the target's endurance.
Throw: The user grabs their target, and hurls them in any direction.  This deals physical damage, and the damage is increased if they strike a wall.  If they strike another enemy, both receive damage.  The effect is based on the user's strength and the target's endurance.
Disarm: Attempts to knock the opponent's weapon out of their hands, by checking the adventurer's agility against their target's agility.  The target must have a non-artifact weapon equipped.

I think these are starting to come together, but could use a bit more versatility.

Athletics:
Dash: The athlete moves two spaces in one turn.  They may not attack or cast on either move.
Leap:  The athlete is able to jump over one tile and land on the other side, allowing them to bypass enemies and obstacles.
Recuperate:  The athlete is able to use their stamina to continue fighting when others would have fallen.  Exchanges stamina for health.
Sprint: The athlete moves three spaces in one turn.  They may not attack or cast on any of these moves.
Blinding Speed: The athlete has incredible speed and reflexes, and is able to use their stamina to make two full moves in one turn.  They may attack or cast in either or both of these moves.

I think I like the overall theme of this skill tree, but I still need to come up with more ideas.  I'd rather not have a skill that's exactly the same as another, except one is numerically better, like Dash and Sprint, but I'm not sure what I could/should do with this.

These are the two warrior skill trees I'm doing that aren't just regular attack skills.  Athletics is supposed to contain warrior abilities that aren't attacks, but are still useful in a fight.  Tactics is supposed to be sort of a miscellaneous skill tree for things that don't really fit anywhere else.  It's mostly comprised of attacks that have some special effect for weakening the enemy or putting the player in a superior position rather than just doing damage.

[brog]

POWDER has some nice passive abilities, like:
- "Charge", do extra damage when attacking in the same direction as you just moved.
- "Impale", chance to damage enemies behind the one you're attacking with a spear.
- chance to push enemies back on a hit.

and from ADOM:
- exchange positions with a hostile monster.
- invisible when next to a wall (thief).

maybe some kind of backstab ability, if you have monsters 'sleeping' or facing in a certain direction (could just be the direction they've just moved/attacked in).

- sweeping/slashing attacks, which deal damage to more than one target, could have different levels like so:

Code:

..X   .XX   XXX   XXX
.@X   .@X   .@X   X@X
..X   .XX   XXX   XXX

or, a big club or hammer could hit a 2x2 square next to you.

[s0]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has plenty of interesting and unique abilities. Some are granted to you by the gods, others are racial. For instance, when you play as a ghoul, you have to eat rotting flesh of your enemies to survive. And lot of it. 

[dspencer]

My suggestion is make your character more specific. "Warrior" is pretty generic - every game and its uncle has a Warrior in it. However, on your other post, I saw Athelete... So I'm going to give you some specific suggestions for a type of athlete, the "Track Star"

Dash - After a turn or two wait, lets you move a number of squares in one direction (presumably, more than you would have been able to otherwise).
Longjump - Like dash, but a longer delay, and you don't step on the tiles between you and your destination (no traps, can move past enemies, etc).
Highjump - lets you jump up through holes in the ceiling.

[Bree]

How about Seduce?

[Curseman]

My suggestion is make your character more specific. "Warrior" is pretty generic - every game and its uncle has a Warrior in it. However, on your other post, I saw Athelete... So I'm going to give you some specific suggestions for a type of athlete, the "Track Star"

By "warrior skills" I really just anything that isn't magic.

[dspencer]

Right! That's my point - that's about as unspecific as you can get.

[Curseman]

Well that's kind of the idea.  I'd like to add things that are unique and different from what you always see.  Xion's suggestions for shove and trip are good because they're simple, intuitive, and would be useful in a roguelike without being just attack skills that do +20 damage or whatever.

POWDER has some nice passive abilities, like:
- "Charge", do extra damage when attacking in the same direction as you just moved.
- "Impale", chance to damage enemies behind the one you're attacking with a spear.
- chance to push enemies back on a hit.

The "charge" ability is going to be in as an attack skill under the name "rush."  The information for the tentative attack skills I'm going with for now are posted in the roguetemple thread I linked to if you're interested in looking at them.
I'm planning on spears having a reach of 2 squares anyway, so they'd be able to do impale already.
Pushing enemies back will be in under the skill "kick."

These are good though.  It's the sort of thing I'm looking for.

and from ADOM:
- exchange positions with a hostile monster.
- invisible when next to a wall (thief).

The first one is something I'm definitely considering.  I'm not sure how I'd balance out the thief thing unless I just made it so a lot of enemies can see you while you're invisible.

maybe some kind of backstab ability, if you have monsters 'sleeping' or facing in a certain direction (could just be the direction they've just moved/attacked in).

I'm not going to have sleeping monsters.  I'll consider the one about attacking from behind the direction they last moved in.  It's an interesting idea, but may work out to be a bit too complicated.

- sweeping/slashing attacks, which deal damage to more than one target, could have different levels like so:

Code:

..X   .XX   XXX   XXX
.@X   .@X   .@X   X@X
..X   .XX   XXX   XXX

There'll be an attack skill called "whirlwind attack" that will hit all 8 directions around the player.  Weapons that can hit squares adjacent to the targetted square might be an interesting idea.

Thanks for taking the time to write all of these ideas, brog!  You're definitely on the right track.

My suggestion is make your character more specific. "Warrior" is pretty generic - every game and its uncle has a Warrior in it. However, on your other post, I saw Athelete... So I'm going to give you some specific suggestions for a type of athlete, the "Track Star"

Dash - After a turn or two wait, lets you move a number of squares in one direction (presumably, more than you would have been able to otherwise).
Longjump - Like dash, but a longer delay, and you don't step on the tiles between you and your destination (no traps, can move past enemies, etc).
Highjump - lets you jump up through holes in the ceiling.

These are good.  Dash is a lot like an ability that's in the aforementioned DDRogue.  I dunno if you've played that or not, but it's pretty good.  I think I'm going with a more simple, basic method of command input than it is though.  Y'know, push 'm' for magic, then push a button between a and z to select the spell you want, or 's' for skills and then a key between a and z again.  High jump wouldn't work because I'm not tracking where pits are between levels for that sort of thing (to my knowledge, Incursion and Dwarf Fortress are the only ones that do that).  I think the "Track star" concept could lead to interesting things though.

[brog]

Thanks for taking the time to write all of these ideas, brog!

Not a problem.  I've started making roguelike games several times, so I've collected a bunch of ideas and then never used them.

[droqen]

Topple: As Trip, but knocks the enemy back 1 square - and you can knock over a whole row of enemies (think dominos!)

Dig: Dig through walls? (or will you have an item for that?)

Grab: Good chance that a grabbed enemy is entirely unable to move away from you. (can only grab one enemy at a time, unless you have lots of arms?)

Quickdraw: Make accessing the inventory faster. (simple but useful, depending on whether or not there is any inventory-access time consumed -- only in the case of actually using an item of course.)

Autocannibalism: EAT YOUR OWN FLESH. Deals heavy damage, the reward being you are now full of stomach. (silly idea)

Flip: Grab an enemy and flip him to the opposite side of you.
Hits ground = knocked down, damage.
Hits wall = bounces back to original position, knocked down, 2x damage.
Hits enemy = original enemy knocked down, damage. other enemy knocked back (and down?), damage.
Hits item = knocked down, destroyed item, damage + bonus damage (effect of item)

Smash: Instead of making a regular attack, you SMASH an item on the target. Similar to throwing an item at the target, except it does more damage, is only melee, and quite often destroys the item in question. (bonus damage based on how tough the item would be to destroy, realistically?)

Break: Make an attack which knocks you and your opponent back 1 space/tile/square. ('Break' as in breaking apart from one another in combat, not breaking a limb) The opponent may be stunned. This may be simply a maneuver, and not an attack?



I've never even attempted to make a roguelike; I hope you find a couple useful ones in there. Somewhere.

[Jad]

Use humanoid enemy as 'human shield', shoving said 'human shield' into other enemies.

I like the idea of being able to execute acrobatic moves .. but that they'd make some kind of sense and be useful too.

KNEE TO THE NUTS <- major stun on humanoid enemies but very little damage

GERMAN SUPLEX <- positions enemy behind you

nah seriously my ideas are too visual and silly, haha, nevermind.

[droqen]

Jad; German Suplex is kind of like my idea (somewhere in there), except with a better name xD

I think that grabbing an enemy to use as a shield (or some kind of horrible weapon) would be awesome.

[Curseman]

Dig: Dig through walls? (or will you have an item for that?)

You'll just break walls down with regular attacks.  Different walls will have different levels of damage resistance.

Grab: Good chance that a grabbed enemy is entirely unable to move away from you. (can only grab one enemy at a time, unless you have lots of arms?)

Hmm... I think that trip/tackle would be objectively more useful than this.  The one thing I do like about it is that it's typically a monster ability, and turning the tables on those punks would be satisfying.  Maybe that would be cool - make it so the player gets all the cheap dirty moves that monsters traditionally get.

Summons/breeding, and especially chain summoning are right out though.  I won't let the enemies do it either.  Those are cheap even by roguelike standards.

Quickdraw: Make accessing the inventory faster. (simple but useful, depending on whether or not there is any inventory-access time consumed -- only in the case of actually using an item of course.)

That's a pretty good idea.  I'm thinking maybe I could do this by allowing the player to use one item on their turn without actually using that turn at the cost of some stamina.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to let the player use Quickdraw and Blinding Speed on the same turn to activate up to three items in a single move?

Autocannibalism: EAT YOUR OWN FLESH. Deals heavy damage, the reward being you are now full of stomach. (silly idea)

Very original!

Smash: Instead of making a regular attack, you SMASH an item on the target. Similar to throwing an item at the target, except it does more damage, is only melee, and quite often destroys the item in question. (bonus damage based on how tough the item would be to destroy, realistically?)

Break: Make an attack which knocks you and your opponent back 1 space/tile/square. ('Break' as in breaking apart from one another in combat, not breaking a limb) The opponent may be stunned. This may be simply a maneuver, and not an attack?

These are interesting ideas.  They don't really fit with how I'm going to be doing items, so I won't use them, but I don't think they're bad.

Use humanoid enemy as 'human shield', shoving said 'human shield' into other enemies.

I like the idea of being able to execute acrobatic moves .. but that they'd make some kind of sense and be useful too.

KNEE TO THE NUTS <- major stun on humanoid enemies but very little damage

GERMAN SUPLEX <- positions enemy behind you

nah seriously my ideas are too visual and silly, haha, nevermind.

No, no, these are good!  I like them!

German suplex/flip sound good, but I think they may be a little close to this:

Throw: The user grabs their target, and hurls them in any direction.  This deals physical damage, and the damage is increased if they strike a wall.  If they strike another enemy, both receive damage.  The effect is based on the user's strength and the target's endurance.

It seems to me like they'd be kind of redundant.  I'd use them if someone had an idea for how to make them stand out from each other a bit.

I think that grabbing an enemy to use as a shield (or some kind of horrible weapon) would be awesome.

I swear I read somewhere that someone was doing a roguelike where every character was also a usable item.

Thanks for the suggestions!  You guys are giving me a lot of ideas!

[JasonPickering]

i dont know if this will help but shiren the wanderer had an interesting weapon system. you were able to combine weapons and then if they had special abilities they would combine,

a warriors main thing is his weapon, so maybe weapon specific stuff would be better, like extra damage against certain characters, and personally i would rather have passive skills, then active ones. especially if your going to have magic.

[Curseman]

The thing with passive abilities is that they don't really take skill to use.  Give a horrible player a passive ability, and give a great player a passive ability, and it'll work the same for both of them.  Give them an active ability, and the good player will show more efficient use than the bad one.

I'll put a few in where I think they'll work, but ultimately, roguelikes are about the challenge, so I want to make it so there's a big difference between a person using an ability effectively and a person using an ability ineffectively.

[CosmicMaher]

I'd love to play a roguelike where a player can become a lich.

[droqen]

Vanguard: Yessss <3

I like your design brains.

Passive abilities tend to be more straightforward, less of a matter of personal choice as well. There's a blurred line between what is really "passive" and what is really "active" (i.e. an ability that increases sneak success rate by a factor of 3 is technically passive, but it also makes sneaking, a specific ability, much more viable - esp. in the late game when things will notice you more easily), but when you get into the really actually passive side of things ('reduce all damage by 10%') the abilities become dull and fun-free.

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Warrior skills? My suggestion is to take look at Berserk -- http://berserk.chaosforge.org/ -- there you have maybe only a couple of skills, but none of them (except the primary) is a +X +Y to something. Too bad I never had time to polish it more :/