DnD 4e and Status Conditions

I play a lot of DnD 4.e and I think some of the character statuses (stati? statum? stata?) could work well in Kharne (with some small modification). Others wouldn't work so well.

For example, certain undead could stun you. Stunned creatures can't do anything; the stun has a certain duration, or there is a chance the stun wears off at the end of each turn. In the context of a roguelike with a single character this is a highly lethal attack - it might be worth restricting this property to certain unique monsters.

Immoblisation/Restraining is also easy to implement - you can do everything except move! The closest analogue to dominated in the roguelike milieu would be the classical Confusion, where your movements are randomly swapped (along with further limitations that are generally roguelike-specific). Weakened is also simple to implement, and would also be a good brand.

Dazed however, which in DnD cuts down on the number of actions you can perform in a round to a single (standard) action would be tougher to implement. At its core, dazed is about controlling and limiting the effectiveness of a character, perhaps the closest analogy in a roguelike might be not allowing the character to attack, but allowing the character to do anything else.

And finally another status effect (but this time, not from DnD) - bleeding. Like poisoned, you lose hp each turn (or so) but to cure it you need to raise your hp to minimum as opposed to quaffing a potion.

Any thoughts on any of these? Have I missed any?

...in which I admit I play DnD 4e

There are several main reasons why I've never won Crawl. The first is that I'm much too impatient. The second is that I'm not cautious enough. And the third is that I get complacent playing MdFis (my favourite class). Yet I'm glad about this. Mindlessly hacking things isn't and shouldn't be the way to win at Crawl, thankfully. Its a testament to how state-of-the-art (when it comes to Roguelikes) that Crawl has become, really.

That aside, that you have an added level of depth for "just" melee characters is something I'd like to emulate in Kharne. albeit via a slightly different mechanism. I've played a lot of DnD 4e recently and am impressed with some of the features that have been introduced to pep up playing fighter/melee classes.

So I'm going to make slight changes to the class system in Kharne. The five classes will stay the same (Warrior, Knight, Thief, Cleric, Mage), but as the character advances in level, they will gain powers and innate abilities.

They also gain a different name as they gain in level, for more atmosphere. For example, a level 1 Warrior would be a Grunt whereas a level 5 warrior would be a Soldier.

The full list of proposed names is as follows:

Warrior
Grunt, Soldier, Warrior, Commander, Warlord

Knight
Squire, Defender, Paladin, Champion, Hero

Rogue
Thug, Rogue, Criminal, Villain, Malefactor

Cleric

Novice, Acolyte, Cleric, Minister, Prelate

Mage
Initiate, Apprentice, Scholar, Sage, Archmage

I've not quite figured out all the powers that each class will have at different levels (suggestions are most welcome), but here's an example of what I had in mind for the Rogue class. The powers gained are cumulative, and would scale for the character's current level. They're also thematic.

Thug: every x turns, make your next attack a critical hit (where x is a reasonable length of time).
Rogue: every x turns increase your stealth dramatically for a short period of time (where x is a reasonable length of time).
Criminal: gain a bonus to critical hit damage.
Villian: gain a bonus to evasion.
Malefactor: give a percentage chance to cheat death once every y turns for a small period of time (where y is a fairly large number)

Now, of course, when you have, in a roguelike, a resource that regenerates over a period of time, you immediately open up the can of worms that is Pillar Dancing. I don't think there have been that many truely satisfactory solutions to Pillar Dancing, but I think that powers that recharge every x turns should only count turns when the character is actually doing something.

Some additional features that come to mind:

• Powers could be recharged (or drained) by fountains
• It wouldn't be good to display the exact number of turns left until a power is usable - but a descriptive indicator would work
• There could be an item brand that decreases/increases the timer of the powers.
• Powers could be enhanced, suppressed or even turned off by certain zones in the dungeon, or certain monsters

Thoughts? Suggestions for appropriate powers? Criticism?