Saturday 19 September 2009

Attempt #45556433 to make thievery a viable playstyle in roguelikes

In the next version sneak-attack damage will be added to both melee and ranged physical attacks carried out by the player upon unaware foes.

The basic sneak attack damage doubles the inflicted damage, but thieves get a bonus to this - for every three points in the subterfuge skill, the damage scales up (e.g. a subterfuge skill of 6 will mean that sneak attack damage is four times normal damage).

In the long run this may prove to be horribly unbalanced, but I hope it will make playing theives more attractive in the short term.

I've also got an idea to add an additonal weapon brand that does extra sneak attack damage.

And eventually, I want thieves to be able to open doors without making monsters aware of their presence.

Anyone got any other ideas for making thievery a valid playstyle?

2 comments:

x said...

You could allow the player to sneak up on the monster and steal from the monster directly. Probably just whatever the monster drops, or you could even make monsters carry certain special "steal only" items. Disguises might help you avoid detection. Orc disguise would help avoid detection with Orcs, etc. Also, stealing from the stores (though this would naturally carry strong risks..) would be nice. Additionally, there could be peaceful NPCs in the dungeon whose only purpose is to be stolen from. It'd also be nice if thieves could easily escape from combat somehow.

Good idea though, it's funny that with a genre named Roguelikes, there are so few viable thief classes in Roguelikes.

Karmatic said...

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/08/column_play_qa_with_keith_burg.php is an Q&A with the dev of an upcoming iPhone roguelike and I found some of his ideas for different play-styles to be very cool