ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

ATM I'm trying to think of interesting skill combinations for new classes (using existing T2 skills). If you people have any ideas you think would be interesting, feel free to post them...

What I've come up with so far:

Warriors

Warlock
Demonology and Mimicry... So you can wield a Demonblade and an artifact weapon.

Gladiator
Polearms + Antimagic + Backstab.

Skinwalker
Swords + Mimicry.

Templar
Hafted + Stunning blows + Mindcraft.

Berserker
Axes + Dodging + Backstab.

Mages

Elementalist
The four elemental schools plus Mindcraft. No other magic, decent melee.

Mind-mage
Mindcraft and Thaumaturgy. No other magic, terrible with melee.

Battle-mage
Barehand and Thaumaturgy. Bring it on.

Priests

Hellknight
Barehand and Necromancy, for maximum splatter. Melkor's version of the Paladin.

Archers

Hunter
Bows + Mindcraft.

Sniper
Crossbows + Antimagic.

Loremasters

Shaman
Mindcraft and Mimicry. Decent melee.

Mystic
Mindcraft and Symbiosis, really bad melee. It's the shrooms, man...

Rogues

Spellsword
Sneakiness and subskills + Mana. (Yes I know, the name isn't very good.)

...

That's all for now. How do these sound so far in terms of balance?

Mindcraft + Thaumaturgy.. Just recently played a mindcrafter and it was walk in the park until I got bored of having to spend so many turns killing stuff in Dol Guldur and I quit.
Thaumaturgy could fix it ok. So the end result would most likely be overkill.

Berserker as a class looks really interesting too.

_________________
Stronk is a potent combatant with a terrifying appearance.

Thaumaturgy is actually more expensive and less damaging than schools magic, but I was thinking it would stand on its own better in combination with Mindcraft.

Re Berserkers, I guess I was thinking along the lines of Vikings (thus the axes), and fighting without armor for better speed and accuracy.

Anyway I've done a little testing of the new warrior classes. What I've found is:
- Gladiators are not that interesting to play.
- Skinwalkers are powerful, but annoying because of Mimicry quirks.
- Berserkers are powerful, but not unbalanced, and interesting to play.
- Templars are hilariously overpowered.

Munchkin:
Alchemy + wizardry- for those who have been unable to win with Zombie RohanKnight Unbelievers.

IMHO, the trouble with many of the skills is that they are not ever going to be worth putting many points into: Trapping, Music, and Mimicry are ones I almost never use. Thaumaturgy can be either incredibly powerful (if you get a high level View/Inertia spell) or a complete waste (high level elemental spells).

What about the idea of combining a warrior-type character with a specific elemental school?
For example, Hru: Barehand + Earth

I actually tried that once! Let's see if I can find the screenshots... Umm, here:

http://angband.oook.cz/screen-show.php?id=2232
http://angband.oook.cz/screen-show.php?id=2233

It worked out pretty well. Lack of utility spells is a nuisance though (which is why I make traps visible).

Re munchkins, I actually have some thoughts on that which I'll post elsewhere...

That is quite a vault for level 10. Did you have Always Unusual Rooms on?

My thought would be to have high enough skill gains that you could max out the school and fighting skill and still have a few points left over for some utility spells. So give access to Knowledge, although that can also be picked up from FF.

Alternatively, use scrolls then rods later on (so Magic Device has to be accessible). This is what I normally do with non-sorceror, non-antimagic characters.

Yes, that's with ironman rooms.

Re scrolls, you end up needing a lot of them... Quite a lot. It's not a game-stopper. but it is annoying... Unless you use Ironman rooms and small levels, to consolidate all the traps in vaults.

(Also I just hate the living daylights out of the current trap mechanic.)

BTW, I should note that the main reason for hybrid caster classes is that mages have godawful stats. Especially in terms of the class limit on blows per round (which IMO should have been removed when the skills system was implemented); but also in terms of STR and CON. Mages are easier to play as a Troll than as e.g. a Gnome. IMO that's just wrong.

As Lord Dimwit pointed out in his guide, the most important stat for every character is hp. Therefore I have found that the easiest race to play as a mage is Death Mold because of the extra hit die.

I think that the stat limits are reasonable for Sorcerers, which have no need for melee. The same might be true to a lesser degree for Geomancers, Thaumaturges, and so on. But I agree that a fighting mage should be better.