ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've had an idea for an addon adding a new Meta class type: Fated; a "new" accompanying resource: Luck; and three classes (one for each archetype) to use the resource: Wyrdthief ('rogue'), Oracle ('mage') and Champion ('warrior')

I'm not certain that I'll actually be able to MAKE this, but...I'll lay out my ideas here and try to work on it when I can.

Starting with the metaclass:

Fate is either a special Arcane magic somewhat linked to Chronomancy, or perhaps it is an Unknown Force, beyond the grasp of true mortal understanding. Regardless, users seek to alter the course of Destiny itself. Those who attempt to manipulate fate do so by affecting luck; carrying around a lucky talisman may seem silly to some, but for these spectacular individuals, it is true power.

Luck, as a resource, is inherently tied to Luck, the stat. It is a single bar that ranges from -100 to 100 as below:

{-100 ------------- 0 ------------- 100}

Bonuses to luck, from races, prodigies, or the Alchemical Brotherhood quest potion provide two things: an infusion of luck, pushing your total up by the relevant amount, and an increase to your cap in both directions. So, for example, a Halfling with Lucky Day would have, assuming they never spent any luck, a bar that looks like this:

{-145 ------------- 0 ------45------- 145}

Luck items work the same way, however when removed, the apply a cost to your Luck resource to compensate (No requipping the Lucky Halfling Foot repeatedly to charge your luck). Potentially, there is a cap of +/- 200.

With the background out of the way, the conceptual foundations of the classes are below. I'm still in the very EARLY conception stages of things, so it's still all theoretical and informal:

Wyrdthief: This is the Fated Rogue, and the first of them to conceptually form in my head. It is a Magic, Cunning, Dex class, similar in some respects to the Shadowblade. The Wyrdthief steals luck from foes, and uses this to power the class's strongest abilities. At the moment, I'm only going to talk about their new abilities, but the class will have some default ToME abilities (like Dual Daggers and Stealth).

Theft: This talent tree allows the Wyrdthief to steal many things from their foes; the first talent gives them Luck, based on the Wyrdthief's accuracy and cunning, while reducing the Luck of a foe. The second talent, Steal Weapon, is your basic disarm. The third talent, Steal Heart, is a short term charm effect. The final talent, Steal Life, gives you life leech as a sustain, lowering your max luck cap and burning a little luck with every hit. This is the only tree proper I have worked out.
Certainty: This talent tree directly uses the Wyrdthief's luck to obtain particular effects NOW. The talents are mechanically similar. Investing points in them will reduce the cost (if possible), reduce the cooldown, and potentially lengthen the amount of time they work. The talents are not in order:
Guaranteed: Instant activation, your next attack will crit. Burns relatively high amount of luck.
Denied: Instant Activation, the next defense check you make will succeed, or maybe until your next turn. Or something.
Vetoed: Same as above, but for saves.
Destined: Gives a Spellpower bonus proportional to Cunning and Luck.

Other talents:
Unusual Happenstance: gives effects when you dodge foe's attacks, such as off balance, disarm, and what not.
Guided Steps: Increases your stealth power, scaling with Magic and Luck. At 5 points, you no longer trigger traps.
(other talent suggestions welcome!)

Oracle: The Oracle is the caster archetype, and manipulate the luck stat by using sustains and quite often operating at negative luck levels for more power. Very hedge-witch or voodoo sort of theme. They would, however, also have the ability to innately gain the Cursed tree. Still working out abilities.

Champion: The Champion is the melee warrior archetype, capable of sword-and-board or doublehand, depending on build. They gain luck from a feedback cycle; they gain a little luck when they crit or dodge, and spend it frequently on abilities. They have some overlap with the Wyrdthief for abilities, such as the Certainty tree.

So, long, I know. But what do you think conceptually? Would it fit? Would it be interesting? Do you have ideas for abilities or mechanics or other considerations?

Very cool and well thought out! I'm not sure about basing the main resourse off of luck, though. For one, that means everyone playing these classes will probably start with the Halfling race, because of their boost to luck. That seems off; currently most resources are based off of willpower, and multiple classes get bonuses to that, but only halflings get a luck bonus. Not sure what you can do about that. Also, it seems like luck is the rarest stat to get on equipment, at least for me, so it could be tough to raise. It might not really matter though, it depends how much luck you really need, and how expensive their talents are.

It's not as bad as it first seems; each class has a way to generate and/or manipulate their Luck, and talent prereqs are based on Cunning or Magic. Halflings have a slightly higher cap than everyone else and start the game with 5 higher luck (which could be gone or manipulated away by the end of the first map, if not the first encounter) so that would not matter much. It's a good choice for min/maxers, I'll admit, but not necessary.

...hrm, more details... short and sweet Luck generation per class:

Wyrdthief: Steals from foes during combat.
Oracle: manipulates via sustains.
Champion: Gains from "Lucky Moments" (crits, dodges, and so on... they snowball, but that's part of the point).

As the Champion is a gish school, it will probably have some sort of sustain for stat gain skill of some kind, as I personally think that is a requisite for all gish to help eliminate their Multi-ability-dependance (MAD) problem (Sun Paladin, I'm looking at you...).

I do like the Wyrdthief and Oracle concepts (not sure where you're going with the Champion), although I think Tome already has more than enough resources. Still, I can see where the existing ones don't quite fit. Still, sure you can't run it off Paradox?





I like the thematic unity you have with the names. Sleek. Interesting mix of abilities, too.



This tree looks like it would work nicely with Shalore Timeless. Which is a good thing, since it gives the class at least one other go-to race besides Halfling, and they sort of fit flavour wise. Well, if duration is an important factor, anyway.
Guaranteed: It's a rather minor thing actually, there's a Deathblow from two-handed and Assault from the shield combat tree that basically do this and then some. Granted they are 4th level talents, but they also do other stuff. Also think about what talent points above the first can buy you - reduced cost and/or cooldown? More than one hit?
Denied: Look at Set Up from the Brawler's Tactical Combat Tree for something similar to get a feel for the power level.
Vetoed: the cooldown on this one will be interesting.
Destined: sustained I guess? Or is it more of a activated short term thing?


Unusual Happenstance: That sounds quite cool. A nice twist would be if at high talent levels it would also work on ranged defense (bowstrings inexplicably snapping)
Guided Steps: Maybe a short term boost that protects you from stealth failure? Could give you resistance against pin and knockback, or put that in another talent.

Random Ideas:

• Charmed Life: protection against crits, small negative health reserve (similar to heroism infusions)
• Press Advantage: with every crit, push enemy one square backward and follow immediately, when against a wall/other impassable, switch places OR get bonus - don't know, activated or sustain? both could work
• Lucky Dodge: projectile slowing similar to the Brawler, PM or Mobility talents
• Try Again: instant, low CD, short range, phase door, with short duration defense bonus afterwards
• No Hands!: run over the heads of a group of enemies for X turns, with a chance of confusing them. Movement speed is boosted and scales with what you want, enemies may be at most Y squares apart, suggest 0 at TL 1 and 3 at TL 7 (5/5 with cat point). Spectating enemies may be dazed for 1-2 turns.
• Even the Odds: get something nice when the victim of a crit
• Tough Act to Follow: lay a trail of slipping rock traps
• All In: gain massive bonuses to phys and spellpower, critical damage modifier and resistance penetration at the cost of a higher chance of being critted yourself, needs some thought on which other talents it should and should'nt be able to be used together with.

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Ghoul never existed, this never happened!

I like the general approach to this. Good job. More random ideas for Oracles; I'm imagining the class as being centered around chaining spells that will take effect several game turns later. Manipulating the future if you will.

Jinxes: A tree with delayed spell effects of the type "When X happens, do Y", eg "whenever any creature within X tiles of target creature becomes stunned, this talent deals X damage and attempts to Blind all enenies within Y squares of targeted creature". The idea is to have several unactivated jinx talents active at the same time and then set off a domino effect of statusing, damaging freak accidents simultaneously. The first talent's activating condition should be a critical hit/% damage so that the Oracle can set it off without the need for status talents.

Ideally having multiple jinxes activate at the same time should be rewarded with bonus damage and harder to save against status effects. Alternatively Oracles could come with synergizing trees that lowers saves and status resistances.

Augurmancy A tree that manipulates fate with spells of the type "in a given/random amount of turns something happens". Could possibly synergize with the above Jinx tree since you could cast a delayed spell on the target and then set up a Jinx chain for fun and profit. Once a creatures (grim) future has been foretold it will happen in the specified number of turn no matter what, making this more of a hit and run tree.

I'm thinking maybe a cheap attack talent, a nuke, a spell that summons an ally adjacent to the target creature (Tall Stranger), and either a passive effect or utility of some sort (although this would be very hard to balance properly).

Fortunes: Permanent/Sustained buffs. No specific ideas but the name fits.

Something that occurs to me (and if you plan for integration to the game, needs to be avoided), is that the main character you play in tome is NOT a destined hero, and is NOT simply fated to 'save the world'. You are only an ordinary adventurer looking for money and fame. (Or whatever your private motivations are.) You merely stumble into the plots you find. If you start dealing with 'destiny' and 'fate' with your classes, remember to keep that in mind, and that while your character might have a fate, it's not some magic great destiny. If your abilities start veering in that direction, it won't mesh with existing plans.

As for the rest, I rather like some of what I see, and I hope you find the time to develop the ideas. I look forward to testing the classes out.

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Currently playing under the name Aura of the Dawn 4 down, 227 to go!
Proud author of Orc Pit Restoration Project, Faction Allies, Dwarven Adventurer addons

Not keen on the use of Luck as a resource.
I suggest having a Fate resource bar instead (or some creative use of the paradox bar)
And as a passive effect of this bar, give a modifier to Luck based on your current amount of Fate/whatever.

Also, I suggest setting the zero point on a new resource bar at 100, as the code will be icky for getting it to accept a resource that goes below 0.

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My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.

I really don't see the problem there. Surely these things can be a matter of interpretation? Sure, it seems like pure chance when you stumble across the SPOILER after killing the SPOILER, but actually it was fated that way?

Besides, who you are can vary wildly depending on race and class. I'm pretty sure there are no ordinary Yeek or Ghoul adventurers, for example.

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Ghoul never existed, this never happened!

Because I'm pretty sure it was one of the dev's who specifically stated that, though my memory may be faulty. I'll dig around and see if I can figure out where I read that (After I sleep... It's way to later/early to dig now). I am however 99% positive it was stated by one of the dev's at some point.... Certainly hope I'm not misremembering, given that it would invalidate my entire post...

Edit: Dammit, now I can't find it. I remember so clearly reading that somewhere, but I can't find it to save my life...

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Currently playing under the name Aura of the Dawn 4 down, 227 to go!
Proud author of Orc Pit Restoration Project, Faction Allies, Dwarven Adventurer addons

Well, just saying that things can easily enough work differently for different classes. And of course we can have a storyline stating explicitely stating how you're just a random guy of the street, but playing a Fate Class you *know* different, you're a special snowflake ~*meant*~ to save the world. With a ~*\+Destiny+/*~

It would make a rather neat statement about how we perceive chance/randomness/causality in real life, too.

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Ghoul never existed, this never happened!

Well, the Fated Classes aren't necessarily fated to save the world. They are simply Fated. It could be "Fated to die horribly at the hands of the Master" or "Fated to eat a ham sandwich on the third Thursday of the last month of the year, depriving a platoon of a pivotal piece of pork, dooming the world to annihilation."

As far as things go, the Champion is the mythic hero of legend who is far luckier than he has any right to be. He is favored by unknown forces and his luck sort of forms a recursive feedback loop, making him luckier by being lucky. He'll take that fortune and use it against his foes. Fortunate strikes, golden opportunities, once in a million odds succeeding 100% of the time. They're people empowered by narrative causality. I don't have too much yet for what they do mechanically speaking yet, but it's a start.

I'm also contemplating giving each of the classes a secondary (or tertiary, as technically the wyrdthief and champion also use stamina) resource. Paradox for Wyrdthief, Positive Energy for Champion, Mana for Oracle. Thoughts?

Stamina isn't really a special resource, no worries about it. Adding things like paradox/mana/positive/negative etc, starts to infringe on terrain of other classes. I'd be very careful how you did that. If you go mana, it probably needs to be a non-dynamic regen, requiring careful husbandry. (As in manasurge and talents for recovery, not just resting to get it back.) A voodoo doctor/hedgewitch needs to be able to manipulate there evil eye forces, and whatnot, but is likely not really trained in manipulating the raw forces of mana, and would not have the kind of reserves things like alchemists and archmages have.

Vote against positive energy and definitely against paradox. Those are both rather special.

You also want to avoid overcomplicating and spreading your classes out early on. Focus on what makes them 'THEM', and then if balance or lore necessitates, you could branch out to broaden there choices.

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Currently playing under the name Aura of the Dawn 4 down, 227 to go!
Proud author of Orc Pit Restoration Project, Faction Allies, Dwarven Adventurer addons

Good point. Was thinking about Paradox because a couple ideas I had for wyrdthief were inherently paradoxical in nature.

Spontaneous Combustion: Steal the foe's imminent destiny (being on fire) and bring it to the present, igniting your foe for X damage over Y turns, causing him to be on fire for you to steal the destiny in the first place.

Well, on subjects like that, have you thought about 'steal destiny' (or 'steal hope, steal luck, etc... name it what you want.)? Passive abilitiy, ad when an enemy saves against any sort of ailment, you have x% chance to 'steal' the save, causing it to fail while buffing yours for a duration? Would primarily be useful for bosses that frequently save against or shrug off effects you place on them, which would increase your own saves while interfering with theirs.

Of course, you'd have to have abilities that use some sort of ailment for them to save AGAINST first, but... It occured to me. Sort of spin fate, in reverse.

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Currently playing under the name Aura of the Dawn 4 down, 227 to go!
Proud author of Orc Pit Restoration Project, Faction Allies, Dwarven Adventurer addons

Clever suggestion Aura, I like it.

Oh, by the way, modders.... How do I actually start this project? Like, how does one make an addon?