ghoul t1 skill idea
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 4:49 pm
As we all know, ghouls have a -20% global speed penalty and their t1 caps how much damage a single hit can deal to them.
Of course, the challenge of ghoul is not necessarily getting one-shot, so much as getting two-rounded by all the enemies on the map every 5 turns.
I would suggest a tweak to ghouls that would retain the -20% global speed penalty, but take the autokill feel off of it. In a single-death game, difficulty is of course expected and even desired, but I'd argue that there should still be a sense that there was something the player could do to prevent it. Often with undead, there's just no such sense because the two-round death comes out of nowhere before the player can react.
I propose the racial t1 caps how much damage the ghoul can take between any of its turns, regardless of the number of attacks the ghoul takes during that time span. So maybe at 1/5 it would cap that value at 90% of their maximum hp. So no matter how much the ghoul gets hit between any two of its turns, it cannot be killed if it has more than 90% of its max hp as of the beginning of its turn. This restriction would be based on the ghoul's actual turn (ie., factoring in its speed penalty), not the game's or opponent's turn clock.
This would be in line with the notion of undead resilience. You can just pound at them but they'll keep shambling along for a little while longer even after you've cut off their head or whatever.
That way, a ghoul can never be killed from full health, by getting surprised and two-rounded before it had a chance to react.
I'd argue that this is balanced, because the global speed still represents a substantial penalty to damage output, the chance to be hit with status effects, the ability for enemies to position themselves, etc. Undead also cannot use infusions, so it would not be possible to load up on cd-free heals and essentially skate on the edge of death for several turns in a row using this.
Of course, the challenge of ghoul is not necessarily getting one-shot, so much as getting two-rounded by all the enemies on the map every 5 turns.
I would suggest a tweak to ghouls that would retain the -20% global speed penalty, but take the autokill feel off of it. In a single-death game, difficulty is of course expected and even desired, but I'd argue that there should still be a sense that there was something the player could do to prevent it. Often with undead, there's just no such sense because the two-round death comes out of nowhere before the player can react.
I propose the racial t1 caps how much damage the ghoul can take between any of its turns, regardless of the number of attacks the ghoul takes during that time span. So maybe at 1/5 it would cap that value at 90% of their maximum hp. So no matter how much the ghoul gets hit between any two of its turns, it cannot be killed if it has more than 90% of its max hp as of the beginning of its turn. This restriction would be based on the ghoul's actual turn (ie., factoring in its speed penalty), not the game's or opponent's turn clock.
This would be in line with the notion of undead resilience. You can just pound at them but they'll keep shambling along for a little while longer even after you've cut off their head or whatever.
That way, a ghoul can never be killed from full health, by getting surprised and two-rounded before it had a chance to react.
I'd argue that this is balanced, because the global speed still represents a substantial penalty to damage output, the chance to be hit with status effects, the ability for enemies to position themselves, etc. Undead also cannot use infusions, so it would not be possible to load up on cd-free heals and essentially skate on the edge of death for several turns in a row using this.