Peter wrote:Part of me wants thorns to remain 100-point death machines because it might put new players in the right perspective for how the game as a whole works.
You know, in a way, it isn't a completely horrible idea.
Of course, thorns in particular would be bad since thorns shouldn't do that much damage, but we've long wanted to make the game a lot more deadly, where the Tradition side of the slider matters a lot more. Jorb's standing expression has been that he wants the basic unit of gameplay to be not an individual character, but rather a bloodline of characters.
Of course, we still have no implementation of ancestral worship and related skills/techs, so at this time the point is moot, but that's an indication of whither we'd like the game to develop. The point being that, once we do have more of that, a few things that might be deadly to an early player if they make mistakes (like rivers are currently and maybe a few illnesses or something) might help to put players in the right mindset [and maybe seed them with a few early ancestors :)]. Again, not to be misunderstood, we'd need to implement the basics of ancestral worship before that, of course.