I’ve heard crawl sometimes being praised for being a game where you “class” doesn’t really matter, and a Fighter can cast firestorms if he wants to. Or does it? Well, the amount of stats that your background gives you is 12. The number of stats you get in 27 levels (ignoring racial bonuses you have no control over) over is 9. That just feels too little. Your choices in game matter less than your background. A Fighter can indeed cast conjuration, they’ll just suck at it, as Conjurer will have more Int at XL1 than they at XL27 (again, ignoring species, but even they will give you maybe like 3 stats of your desire on average for most species). I think since crawl already isn’t designed around “classes” - doesn’t have any real background restrictions, it should embrace it and reduce background impact on you character to a minimum. Not being tied to your stats at the beginning will allow for more interesting decision making, incentivizing switching depending on what items you find early. I have 2 suggestions:
Reduce starting stats, say, by 9, increase stats you gain by the same amount. For example, Air Elementalist would get 2 Int, 1 Dex, but gain 2 stats of your choice every 3 levels.
Add Scroll of Skill Transfer, similar to Ash old ability. Rare enough to get 2-3 in a 3 rune run. Transfer about 5% of total skill-points (first 6-7 levels) from 1 skill to another, probably over time. Not enough for 2 to get rid of weapon skill you invested for min delay, just enough for skills you started and abandoned.
I’m aware that (1) will make game harder early and require some rebalancing, but I believe it’s worth it in a long run. The “hard” solution, is to rebalance dungeon floors according to new stat distribution. The easier (but somewhat boring) solution is to increase starting HP/MP and lessen HP/MP gain per level accordingly. The easiest (but weirdest) is to make some background stats “temporary” - you’ll lose a stat from you background every 3 levels, transferring it to the stat of your choice.
What if there was a way that you could sacrifice something like health or MP to transfer skills? So hypothetically if you were a species like a minotaur you could switch all of your fighting skills to spell casting but it would take away enough health or MP that it probably would not be worth it. I think it could be cool if there was a way to really shift between malay and spell casting
I don’t think this is really sensible since the game can sometimes give you a huge amount of stat gear, enough to override base stats and level-up choices. However, I think the idea of being able to rearrange stats (as of course decks used to be able to do) is the most obvious approach.
I’ve heard crawl sometimes being praised for being a game where you “class” doesn’t really matter
I think there’s some truth to that but it’s also very wrong (with exception to species like Minotaur/Troll :P). Crawl doesn’t have classes, it has backgrounds. That’s relevant here.
Your background does matter! But it matters less and less as the game goes on. It’s very possible to switch things up depending on what items/spells/gods you find!
Your species gives you about twice as many stats to start with and also determines what you get randomly on level up so it’s much more impactful stats-wise!
I believe backgrounds are generally in a good place currently of being impactful (especially early game) and less so as the game goes on.
I wouldn’t want mechanics that intentionally allow players to converge on a few powerful options around end-game! (which is already an issue) I think the game RNG should matter more for strategic decisions, not less! To that end I think something like more control of stats on levelup might be fine - to help players adapt to RNG. I wouldn’t like removing previously allocated skill points except in very limited circumstances. Let players live with the decisions they made, in general!
In modern Crawl you get 10 stats on level ups, not 9, and it has been this way for a while. Maybe you’re playing a pretty old version?
I’m not sure there’s a need to give more control over stat distribution to the player, that’s sorta Demigod gimmick right now, and it would make different combos more same-y, which is already a bit of an issue, IMO.
From personal experience any start with 10+ Int can be made into a caster even without specific gods, like Vehumet or Ashenzari. Probably won’t be slinging lvl 9’s around, but killing stuff predominantly with spells is very achievable. It all depends on which spells and gear you find, and the order you find them in.
…a Fighter can cast firestorms if he wants to.
That’s a really weird benchmark, sounds a bit hyperbolic, cause Firestorm is a lvl 9 two school spell. Fighter can transition into a caster well enough, provided your species isn’t complete garbage at spells. Here’s an example of one of sergey’s last runs, it’s a MiRe^Ash who casts lvl 7 spells in golden dragon scales in a 3-rune game (sergey is on a 90 game winstreak right now, btw, so it’s not a meme or start scumming run).
No real opinion on Skill Transfer scroll, except a note that it would be completely useless to a large number of characters throughout the run, especially so in the early game. It would also be kinda whatever power-wise in the late game, like an experience potion (and experience potion is at least absolutely amazing early on).
Would a stat transfer scroll be more to your liking? This is still strong player choice (though not from level ups), and lets you re-tune to boost the stats you end up wanting as you go. This also requires the least rework so it’s potentially impactful without being such a potential balancing upset.