ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Bump cuz I finally got Fortress access on Madness.

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My class guides: Possessor, Oozemancer

IMO it's legitimate to use anything other than "cheat" addons (Hulk and stuff like that) or save file editing to win Madness. Using item vault and/or Adventurer class is fine. Mex might disagree, but I think Madness is difficult enough that it warrants using every tool at your disposal.

Great! Early gearing for Oozemancer can be hard due to Antimagic and reliance on Mindstars (oh, early Mindstars, why you so bad?), so vaulting helps a ton.

Just hit 42 during the post-Dreadfell ambush, so have both prodigies before going East. Am playing on Exploration, so won't get knocked out by error, and this will let me see whether there's a limit past which the class simply can't compete or whether it's just gear + skill holding me back on Adventurer.

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My class guides: Possessor, Oozemancer

As far as I know shesh has beaten Madness with Brawler and Sawbutcher, also mex didnt you beat Madness with Arcane Blade? Any reason why those classes arent in S Tier?

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posetcay, the guy who only plays Doombringer

AB got nerfed in 1.5, Shesh used pre-nerf PES to win sawbutcher (so 1.4.9), and the brawler win Mex doesn't believe in (2%).

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A little bit of a starters guide written by yours truly here.

Isn't brawlers also got change in 1.5.x?

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Wyrmic "The static pain" - easy training dummy kill
So, apparently, this is why we have Fixed cooldown talents

Yes, they no longer get a big attacking speed bonus from leather gloves and gauntlets, although the game text is still incorrect (the old value is 167% for gloves and 125% for gauntlets, now it is 125% for gloves and 100%, ie. no bonus, for gauntlets).

but saw butcher is still in S class - has it been done in 1.5?

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MADNESS rocks

So, I hope this isn't too off-topic, but what could be done to make the undead races into C or B power levels, without fundamentally changing how they work (e.g. allowing infusions or removing the ghoul speed malus)?

Their XP penalty is pretty horrible considering their power, but other than that? It's kinda weird how their talents work differently from everyone else's in terms of minimum levels, by the way.

Well considering the second reply to this topic was:
I think its on topic enough


Anyways, Undead's trade-off is supposed to be that their racials are very strong (hence the high XP penalties).

Honestly, I think skeleton is mostly fine and after stun gets changed, you might actually be able to play a melee class with them and not get stunlocked. If you really wanted to buff them you could hit their XP penalty and pretend that does something.

Ghoul is a little different, I can't really think of a class they pair well with besides bulwark. Their racials are actually pretty decent as racials go (good luck beating out the shalore master race). Make it so ghouls don't have to breathe and maybe play around with a passive on their retch: "Your heal mod cannot drop below 80% + 10% per TL or something.

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A little bit of a starters guide written by yours truly here.

:O Stun is gonna get changed? Any link where I can read more? Hadn't heard about this.


I've been playing on and off, and remember it mattering a lot before. Has the general amount of XP gained increased? I feel like before, I didn't have a prodigy until somewhere in the far east, but now I have them around Dreadfell.


They pair decently with necromancer (if going with minions), and might maybe work with archmage? Don't know. Though there's obviously stronger choices for all these. However, I think it's a bit of an identity crisis; they're identified as being capable warriors, yet their abilities and limitations seem fitted to classes that don't need to move around a lot, and that have fairly low HP but large shields. That's mainly spellcasters. The new bursty speed feature of ghoul leap helps a lot, but it's fiddly to use.


Well, that's an issue with Shaloren, not the other races ;P. I do think Shaloren need to be taken down a notch, as they bypass too many design limitations. I think races should be balanced around tier B-C in general, but an A here and there isn't a big deal (I like Cornacs being good, though I'm genetically partial towards humankind). All races should have at least one class where they're considered a one of the strongest combinations, a few more that they're good but not great in, and for the rest, you should still feel like the race gives you _something_, even if it's not as good as what others have.


Yeah, ghouls breathing is just strange. I can understand vampires needing to breath, but not ghouls. If it was an explicit part of the fluff (e.g. they had a racial ability called Residues of Life) I could get behind it, but now, just... no.

Thing is, I'm considering making a tiny mod to just move the races a bit closer together in power level. Mostly for personal use, and to get a bit more used to modding again before going on to bigger projects. Most of the races are either in a fairly good place, or are obvious in what makes them stick out. As undead are played quite differently, I wanted to ask here to try to pinpoint what could be done without changing their nature too much.

One thing I consider is whether the Ghoul's speed penalty should be only to movement, spell and mind speed. This wouldn't be thematically off or change their nature too much, and might also steer them in a martial direction. I've also considered granting a bonus to unarmed attacks for ghouls, as it seems to fit both with their whole "feral" theme and might steer them further towards martial characters (plus, a ghoul brawler is an awesome concept). However, these changes are a bit bigger and would need more explaining (e.g. in the race selection window), and I'd like to keep it small and clean (at least on the surface).

EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I question the nature of undead's starting racial talent. The main thing the talent does is increase your stats. From a thematic viewpoint, it's not great; how does one "improve their skeletal condition" (unless, say, a necromancer)?. From a gameplay perspective, they're effective, but boooring. So very, very, boring. And considering how difficult the start can be for undead, I'm wondering if maybe they shouldn't just have better stats to begin with, and a 1st-level racial that does something more interesting? I'm not saying skeletons should get a free +15/+15 Str/Dex or anything, but giving them a higher starting statline and replacing that ability with something triggered, sustained or activated might make the undead more fun to play.

It really depends on your difficulty level. If you're playing normal with a high-XP-penalty race, you can absolutely win the game before hitting 50. Similarly, as you note, the first prodigy arrives much later for high-XP-penalty races. Nightmare is much the same.

Insane and Madness, however, have very different level curves and you're going to have your first prodigy by The Master regardless of your penalty.

I've long thought it was silly that the different difficulty levels had completely different leveling curves and itemization, but that's how it is.

Actually, I think it's pretty hard in Nightmare to not be 50 before last fight but it's hard in Normal to do it.

There are quite a lot of rare enemies in nightmare, that gives a lot of XP.

Perhaps we should consider upgrading Wyrmic from Tier C?

https://te4.org/characters/172647/tome/18da3df1-ff16-466d-aac6-6e1f8c4acc25

Wyrmic has been tier a this tier list is outdated it has necro and archmage in s tier

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