[Wesnoth-dev] Improving the dwarves

[Asa Swain]

Dave wrote:

"Perhaps instead of increasing the dwarvish
guardsman's movement to 4, we should keep it at 3, but
make him a full-fledged fighter? We could give him an
attack close to the fighter: 7-3. After all, he is a
tough fighting dwarf. He'd be pretty nasty to kill,
but would be very slow to make up for it."

I don't think this is a good idea. We already have
good fighters with the Dwarvish Fighter and Berserker.
If you make the guardsman a slow but powerful fighter
who's a pain to kill, you have a unit that is very
similar to the wose. I prefer being able to actually
move the guardsman, and use his defensive abilities as
a meat shield/bodyguard. The point is the guardmen
aren't supposed to kill enemies, their zone of control
and great defending ability makes them the perfect
units to protect other damaged units. But without that
mobility getting them into position will be a pain. I
think a unit with a great defense and weak offense is
much better than another strong fighter.

About the dwarvish faction in general. I whole
heartedly think that seperating the dwarves from the
outlaws would be a good idea. I don't think players
ever use thugs or poachers much, outlaws are sometimes
useful, but the main reason we have the combined races
is the footpad, becuase the dwarves have no scout. 

Right now the dwarves have a fighter, a mixed
fighter/defender, a ranged unit, and the runemaster
would act as a sort of dwarvish mage. What we really
need is a dwarvish scout (a unit with a faster
movement which is cheaper than the gryphon). Time to
resurrect that old unit idea: the dwarvish runner.
After long arguments over what mount a dwarf would
use, a goat, a ram, and bear? I think the best idea
for a mount is none; dwarves prefer to have two feet
on the ground. 

Idea of a dwarven runner: it would have a slower
movement than most scouts, probabky only 6 moves/turn.
But it has a special ability called "hasty" that
allows it to move on the turn it is
recruited/recalled, and allows it to move after it has
captured a village. If this dual ability is too
powerful than perhaps just the second half of the
ability should be used.

I think that a dwarven runner who can't move too fast
but it great at capturing villages could be very
useful. Jetryl even made some sample art several
months ago. With the runemaster as the magical unit
and the addition of a scout unit, I really think the
dwarves could stand on their own. 

I thought that it was long decided that dwarves and
outlaws were joined at the hip but I agree with Dave
that it would be cool if dwarves could be expanded
enough to ditch their outlaws and stand proudly alone.

-Asa


                
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Sports - Sign up for Fantasy Baseball. 
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/