Daggerfall Roguelike: Join In

[Jay_H]

Talking with some folks on Discord, I'm trying to nail down what would be an appropriate roguelike adaptation of Daggerfall. I might do a video series on it, and I'd be happy to see others give it a shot.

OBJECTIVE:

Reach rank 10 in any guild except the Thieves Guild.

RULES:

• When a guild offers you any quest, you must accept it. Commoner and merchant quests are optional.
• Using Hand-to-Hand is forbidden. It can be chosen as a primary/major/minor skill and trained for the sake of leveling, but cannot be used for combat.
• You may only carry one weapon at a time, in addition to one bow and unlimited arrows. Additional weapons can be stored in the wagon, but you can't carry more than one at any time.
• Donating to temples is forbidden since it's reported to grant large reputation gains.
• No using the console to cheat your way to quest objectives, etc.
• No repairing.
• No bank loans.
• Very High reflexes.

REQUIRED:
=========

Ironman (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2586)
Roleplay & Realism, weight restriction enabled (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2298)
Warm Ashes, all packs enabled (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1087)

OPTIONAL:
=========

Ironman Game Systems
Quest Pack 1 (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=924)
Archaeologists (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=888)
Starting Dungeon Randomizer (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2669)
Any graphical mods
Optional Main Quest (https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/47)
Tedious Travel (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1293)
Airships Mod (viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2324)

FORBIDDEN:
==========

Magicka Regen (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1653)
Carry Weight Customizer (https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/22)
Experimental Smaller Dungeons
Quest Selection List

Any mods not listed are considered optional.

I'll be happy to hear any feedback about the concept, including the mod requirements. The goal is a bit bland but it's concrete, specific, and long-term. I'm on the fence about Tedious Travel; when mixed with Warm Ashes it gets very grindy and that's probably unattractive for people who've tried it. Warm Ashes to me is more important than Tedious Travel if the two don't mix well.

If you're going to try it, I recommend making a separate DFU installation labeled "Ironman" and configuring all the mods there as appropriate.

[Gray Fox]

So, mods exist that make players do what I always do? Interesting! You might also stipulate "no Experimental Smaller Dungeons" or hacking data files to find the quest target...or any other "please don't hurt me" tricks.

"You may only carry one weapon at a time." FYI, a spell to "Create Item" exists that allows the PC to turn spell points into weapons or armor. So if my weapon breaks, may I conjure another? Or does a backup in my wagon count as "carried"?

Finally, I can make donations to Mara all the way up to Rep 49, that's almost halfway to rank 10. I did one quest and I was a Disciple. I'm thinking that would be a no-go.

Good luck!

[Jay_H]

Excellent points I'll add them in.

The rule will be one weapon carried on your person at any time, of any source. You can store your weapon in the wagon before looting another, and then exchange them at the wagon, but there should never be more than one weapon in your personal inventory at a time. An exception for bows would make sense.

[Ommamar]

D

[Jay_H]

Yeah, the donation thing is to prevent massive reputation raises. I'll clarify that.

Roguelikes are a specific genre of game based on permadeath, high levels of difficulty, and resource management. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of its distinctive points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike#Key_features

Hand-to-Hand is banned because it exceeds all materials and doesn't require any effort to find, and never wears down. It makes it all too easy.

[theJF]

Interesting idea. I had a quick go. First quest sent me to a dungeon. I never got inside. Dead on second wave of orcs in a WA siege (thanks kam).

Do you want to set rules for character creation? Number of dice re-rolls, reflex levels, etc?

And if you get the ebony dagger then the first thing you must do is decide on your one weapon and ditch the rest.

It would be nice to have a custom class preset to avoid having to rebuild every time. Plus a way to avoid all of the emperor's videos. And start-up profiles to easily switch between ini files. And a lottery win. Plus eternal youth.

[Jay_H]

I've uploaded my first video. If I could find a simple video editor for Linux I might add subtitles to them.



If you use the Ironman mod, it saves your character at the start of the game so you can reuse it.

No rules for character gen. Do everything you can to save yourself.

I don't know if reflexes are effective in DFU? Mine are on Very High.

TheJF jumped in with one:

[Ommamar]

Interesting idea. I had a quick go. First quest sent me to a dungeon. I never got inside. Dead on second wave of orcs in a WA siege (thanks kam).

Do you want to set rules for character creation? Number of dice re-rolls, reflex levels, etc?

And if you get the ebony dagger then the first thing you must do is decide on your one weapon and ditch the rest.

It would be nice to have a custom class preset to avoid having to rebuild every time. Plus a way to avoid all of the emperor's videos. And start-up profiles to easily switch between ini files. And a lottery win. Plus eternal youth.

[theJF]

Forbidding weapon repair is just getting vindictive now - don't take away my ebony dagger!

Jay informed me that the ironman mod automatically keeps a save from the very start so you re-start without having to go through the entire creation again. Which is very nice.

[Jay_H]

If you are going to disallow hand-to-hand because of the material bonus and not needing to find any equipment to support it then the ebony dagger selection at character creation should be disallowed.

There's a no repair rule, and the Ebony Dagger breaks really fast. Skilling into Short Blade just for that is a double-edged sword; you'll have it easy for awhile with your Disc One Nuke, but once it breaks, you'll probably be swinging around a Steel Wakizashi for a looooong time. These are all questions of strategy!

I have a new video to upload: