ToME Wiki
Summary of my Thoughts
I greatly dislike the randomness inherent in the Lost Adventurer. It makes character planning difficult. It can also cause late game scrapping of characters due to poor RNG luck.
Sure everyone could plan to use 294 skill points and call it even. I don't mind the ability to trade work (slower gameplay, 98 quests lengthens the game) for more character power. I mind that the final power of my character is dependant on the RNG in ways patience can't fix (without starting over). There are Potions of New Life to fix RNG hate in the hp department and Wyrm/vault farming/scumming to handle the equipment issues, but nothing to keep the potential power gain from the Adventurer from being really poor (or really great, but who cares then).
ex. You want Mimicry@35, but you only see it twice in 24 quests. You don't have the spare points to pump all the way to 35 with a modifier of 0.400, do you restart or change your character concept when you are ready to kill Sauron? It's a bit late for both.
I played a recent game where I had option "e) 1 skill point". I found this to be nice in that I could always get something useful, even if just one skill point. I really think the quest would be better if the rewards were fixed ahead of time, but I also wasn't branching out from my class's set of skills (Symbiosis turned out to be mostly worthless, which was my only real diversion)
Chatter
NeilStevens: Considering that I'm weighing making the lost sword quests give only skill point bonuses instead of new skills, this is interesting. Did that option make things more or less powerful, do you think?
DanRosenberry: It made things more powerful without question. Although only slightly. I wasn't playing a class that can make quality use out of every single bonus skill point, but the ability to cop out when the list is poor is an increase in options, and hence an increase in power.
Based on more thinking than is probably good, I'd rate the skill point output in my char build at around 1.5 skill points per quest. If standard chances are worth 1.5 points that means half the time I win and half the time I lose to average 1.5 in useful points. If it is changed to half the time I win and half the time I get 1 point anyway, then that moves the average up from 1.5 per quest to 2.0 per quest. This would add about 10-12 skill points over the course of the game (which is about how many times I took that option).
I had toyed with asking the question "Do you want some skill points (2) or a chance at 3 in a random skill?". 1d2 would probably be a better allotment than 2, but that's more randomness.
There are people who enjoy branching out that won't appreciate the change. The possibility to extend your class if you want seems like a "core" part of the ToME atmosphere/gameplay. However, I'd love to see skills buyable with skill points like abilities, not randomly given by the one remaining Chaos Patron, Mr. RNG.
Note: Discussion below is attempting to keep things balanced as is, if a downgrade of class extension is intended, then I think it'd be useful to discuss the two as seperate topics. (a) how can class extension be reworked to be less like a Chaos Patron, and (b) how can class extension be balanced (made harder/more expensive/less desireable)
ex. Want Mimicry at 1.000 modifier 0.500? Give up 8 skill points currently 3 taken Adventurer quests = Mimicry at 1.700 modifier 0.500, count it as 3*3 = 9 useful skill points handed out. Mimicry 1.000 modifier 0.500 is about 1 skill point less useful, so charge 1 less.
Then the Adventurer could hand out 1.5 points per quest, collect 8 and grab Mimicry. Maybe there could be a training location, and the Adventurer could offer quests (on his levels in successive order going down the dungeon) for credits at the store (3 credits per quest to make fractions poof). These credits at the Training spot could then be turned in for skills, improved modifiers etc.
ex. 16 or so for <random skill> 1.000 mod 0.500, 2 for a skill point, maybe even 4 to improve a modifier by 0.100, but not over 0.500, but no skill point at the old price like current (I'd really like Udun 0.500 in my builds, I'm sure there are other class skills at less than )
NeilStevens: OK, so you were taking bonus skills as well as bonus points. Thank you.
TheFury: I like the one extra skill point option. That would translate to ~35 more skill points.
Dan Rosenberry: Neil, I wanted to see roughly how often I would opt for the 1 skill point copout. Turned out to be about half the time.
Fury, average is 24 or 25 Adventurer quests. at 1.5 you get ~35, which is about what I estimate the current power level of the Adventurer is, given the frequency with which I took his rewards versus the 1 skill point option.
NeilStevens: Good to know; thanks again.
GreyCat: Personally I favor having more fixed quests that would give you a new skill. They could be fun and thematic (e.g. the thieves' guild will teach you stealth if you help them with a little "job"...). Someone would have to create them, though.
DanRosenberry: I ran a bunch of numbers to quantify the current code. There are 20 skills with the RANDOM_GAIN flag. 7 of them have chances to gain of less than 100%. The table below summaries the chances to get a certain skill based on it's RANDOM_GAIN chance with 98 quests.
P100, P80, P70, P60, P50 per, 22.42%, 18.29%, 16.16%, 13.98%, 11.76% avg, 5.49 , 4.48 , 3.96 , 3.42 , 2.88 fail, 8.28%, 16.93%, 23.83%, 33.01%, 44.73% 0, 0.35%, 1.02%, 1.76%, 3.06%, 5.37% 1, 2.04%, 4.79%, 7.26%, 10.87%, 15.94% 2, 5.88%, 11.12%, 14.81%, 19.08%, 23.42% 3, 11.17%, 17.05%, 19.95%, 22.12%, 22.70% 4, 15.76%, 19.40%, 19.94%, 19.02%, 16.33% 5, 17.58%, 17.47%, 15.78%, 12.95%, 9.30% 6, 16.18%, 12.97%, 10.29%, 7.27%, 4.36% 7, 12.62%, 8.17%, 5.69%, 3.46%, 1.74% 8, 8.52%, 4.45%, 2.73%, 1.43%, 0.60% 9, 5.06%, 2.13%, 1.15%, 0.52%, 0.18% 10, 2.67%, 0.91%, 0.43%, 0.17%, 0.05% 11, 1.27%, 0.35%, 0.14%, 0.05%, 0.01% 12, 0.55%, 0.12%, 0.04%, 0.01%, 0.00% 13, 0.21%, 0.04%, 0.01%, 0.00%, 0.00% 14, 0.08%, 0.01%, 0.00%, 0.00%, 0.00% 15, 0.03%, 0.00%, 0.00%, 0.00%, 0.00% 16, 0.01%, 0.00%, 0.00%, 0.00%, 0.00%
"per" is the chance per adventurer quest that a given skill will be offered.
"avg" is the average number of times each skill in that category will show up.
"fail" is the chance that the skill won't be offered at least 3x (fail to get modifier 0.500, regardless of choices)
numbered rows are the probability a skill comes up that many times
For reference the skills have probabilities like this,
P100 = {Archery, Combat, Conveyance, Disarming, Divination, Magic, Magic-Device, Monster-lore, Sneakiness, Spirituality, Stealth, Thaumaturgy, Weaponmastery}
P80 = {Antimagic, Mimicry}
P70 = {Barehand-Combat, Symbiosis}
P60 = {Necromancy, Summoning}
P50 = {Mindcraft}
Numbers were calculated exactly (in 15 digit precision) with a quick Excel spreadsheet.
The fail probabilities with only 49 random quests are 47.72%, 61.05%, 68.25%, 75.53%, and 82.57%. 49 random quests is only useful if the character build needs a few bonus skill points (over 294), but no modifier increases as those fail rates would cause many restarts or late game changes to char build.
TheFury: Would you mind uploading the code change so that I could add it to a project I am working on?
DanRosenberry: Here's a diff -b -C2 between a virgin skills.c and my skills.c. Note: There's a fix for a BugReport431 in here where the gain_chance is considered.
TheFury: Thanks, it works great
*** /tmp/tome-232-src/src/skills.c 2005-07-27 05:13:14.000000000 -0400
--- skills.c 2005-08-24 20:46:16.000000000 -0400
***************
*** 1269,1273 ****
void do_get_new_skill()
{
! char *items[4];
int skl[4];
s32b val[4], mod[4];
--- 1269,1273 ----
void do_get_new_skill()
{
! char *items[5];
int skl[4];
s32b val[4], mod[4];
***************
*** 1309,1313 ****
/* Does it pass the check? */
! if (!magik(s_info[i].random_gain_chance))
continue;
}
--- 1309,1313 ----
/* Does it pass the check? */
! if (!magik(s_info[available_skills[i]].random_gain_chance))
continue;
}
***************
*** 1337,1340 ****
--- 1337,1341 ----
val[max] = 1000;
}
+
if (s_ptr->value + val[max] > SKILL_MAX) val[max] = SKILL_MAX -
s_ptr->value;
skl[max] = available_skills[i];
***************
*** 1342,1348 ****
}
while (TRUE)
{
! res = ask_menu("Choose a skill to learn(a-d to choose, ESC to cancel)?", (char **)items, 4);
/* Ok ? lets learn ! */
--- 1343,1351 ----
}
+ items[max] = (char *)string_make("One skill point, no restrictions.");
+
while (TRUE)
{
! res = ask_menu("Choose a skill to learn(a-d to choose, ESC to cancel)?", (char **)items, 5);
/* Ok ? lets learn ! */
***************
*** 1353,1356 ****
--- 1356,1365 ----
int oppose_skill = -1;
+ if (res == 4)
+ {
+ p_ptr->skill_points++;
+ break;
+ }
+
/* Check we don't oppose an existing skill */
for (i = 0; i < max_s_idx; i++)
***************
*** 1403,1407 ****
/* Free them ! */
! for (max = 0; max < 4; max++)
{
string_free(items[max]);
--- 1412,1416 ----
/* Free them ! */
! for (max = 0; max < 5; max++)
{
string_free(items[max]);
Page Talk
Meta stuff about the page and things. Discussion about the topic goes above.
DanRosenberry: Uggh. Will work on the tao of this wiki. Sorry about committing right after your comment Neil (and about linking/submitting this page before it was ready). Since my commentary was still in flux and has changed fairly much, inaction (rather than reinsertion) on my part seems the better course of action than assuming what you'd want to have done. I'm not moving and deleting comments willy nilly, just restructuring and getting horrible timing with the race conditions 
NeilStevens: Next time do a preview if you're in a long edit, that'll renew your lock on the page.
To restore my old comments, just look at RecentChanges and check the diff of your big edit. That'll show you what I said that you removed.
DanRosenberry: Restored Neil's comment that was overwritten, moved TheFury's comment to the section above, and renamed the sections to better align with intent (I'm trying to split commentary into content commentary and meta, but if I call this section Chatter it will be confusing)