ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Clearly you now need an Eccomancy tree dealing entirely with dolphin-related skills.

I think you might want to build Elemancy the same way Arcane Surge was built in the Nullpack add-on: first talent gives you access to all of the elements and improves the weapon damage bonus, while the other skills serve to boost up the other per-element bonuses. (Split it along "boosts bonus effect, like speed / boosts resistances / %boost to element's damage"? Or have the last skill do something like "activate to convert X% of damage to activated element.") As-is it's either a giant point sink or you're spending a Category point for one skill; I think it'd be a bit more cat-worthy this way, and you get more control over what you're getting out of the cat point.

But, uh, make it a lot weaker than Arcane Surge, because man was Arcane Surge bullshit. Nullpack was sort of hilariously overpowered in general, but Arcane Surge was definitely the best example of that.

Seconded. When there are exclusive talents, having to pay for all of them separately sucks.

I had considered that approach. I've delved quite deep into Nullpack while teaching myself how all this works. Doctornull is... a much more experienced coder than myself, to say the least. The way he has Surge set up is a little daunting, but I think I can do something more simple that will work.
You say as it is you feel you would have to use a Cat point for one skill. Do you say that because you think investing in more than one element would be not worthwhile? Or do you feel there's only one skill in there that's worth it?
To be honest, my main focus while creating these was the on-hit effects and the move speed in the case of Storm. The elemental damage stuff was mostly an after thought, but I still think it provides a nice way to dish a burst of different damage type if you find yourself up against something that is strong against Nature and/or whatever damage your weapon of choice deals.
I agree that investing in exclusive skills is not ideal. To be clear though, these talents do not share a cool down or prevent you activating another. You can potentially have them all stacked for about two turns. Also it's worth pointing out that the effects trigger on any melee attack: you could potentially have the effect proc 14 times in just two turns between Flurry and Shred. Admittedly, the elemental effects will only help each individual skill, but this was not intended to be a tree that would provide consistant elemental damage. That said, I will keep this in mind as I am play testing (only bug tested so far). Thanksfor the feedback!

If Elemancy has each of them as separate talents, then I'm only likely to pick up one because a) they last five turns and cooldown in 10, b) take a turn to activate, and c) cost Equilibrium (where costs stack in ways other resources don't). That makes using more than one impractical, even if they do stack. I might pick up two, but that's it.

That said, if you do keep them as separate, why not remove the level progression/previous talents requirement? They all appear roughly equal in power (I'd even say Call Water is the weakest, since you have a comparatively higher amount of HP), so gating them like that is sort of strange.

Edit: Also, don't think all of the Nature abilities are tagged as such (like how Reclaim in Eyal's Fury has the lline "is: a mind power, nature gift, and anti-magic ability"); that means that the Eel-Skin Armor doesn't seem to trigger on Swarm, for instance.

Ok, that makes sense. I feel all the effects grant utility the class was lacking, but you are right, no one effect is especially more powerful than any of the others, and the order that they are unlocked is more or less arbitrary. I will rework the tree so that the first talent grants all four Calls and each subsequent skill will improve / add additional functionality. In the meantime, I will likely change the reqs so that they are all essentially high level 'first' talents as suggested, as that will be an extremely easy change that will at least let you pick and choose how you want to invest in the talents.

I will look into how the talents are tagged as far as being mind-powers and nature-gitfts, etc. That and the Tactical tags are an area that I have been kind of brushing aside into the 'I'll fix that later' pile. Ecomancy was the first tree I worked on and, admittedly, the sloppiest. Swarm in particular is almost a wholesale copy of Slime Spit, but I'm not totally surprised that I missed the part where it tags the effect type. In my 'sometime' pile is an entire rework of Ecomancy. The talents are not bad, per se, but when I started working on this I thought slowing enemies was going to be a much bigger part of how the class played than it turned out to be. I have noticed in the Character Vault that hardly anyone who has played a Prowler has invested much or anything in the tree. I've also considered just replacing it with Tireless Combatant (the Willpower technique tree from Skirmisher) and replacing the talent in Stalker (Adrenaline -- I hardly even changed the icon) that I stole from Tireless to begin with.

Once again, I appreciate the feedback. This is certainly far from the best add on, but I am learning, and it would not even be half as good as it is now without the advice I've been given here. One of my favorite things about the class is the shield-on-move effect that you suggested. I find it makes moving into a viable turn option in the middle of combat in a way that it never was before, which is especially beneficial to a class that relies on movement so much. Ooh, and that just gave me an idea to work on-move effects into the upper level talents of the Elementalmancy rework. So much to do, so little free time!

1.4.4

Temporary requirement changes while I rework Elementomancy. Should make them more fun to play around with while I'm working on it.

Changed all the reqs for Elementomancy to be high-1 reqs. They are all available at level 10 with 22 Willpower if you unlock the tree.
Reduced cost equi for all Calls, increased cooldown to 20 turns. Added damage from Calls should now be able to crit with your Mind crit rate.
Changed Call Storm so the speed bonus comes from the native effect instead of applying Lightning Speed (I forget why I even did that in the first place. I think I wanted the move speed bonus to break with attack but the on-hit effect and attack speed bonus to persist. But then I decided to make Lightning Speed re-proc anyway, so that was pointless). Reduced the move speed bonus and adjusted duration and damage to match the other Calls.

1.5.3 Elementomancy+, aka Arbitrary Version Numbers!

Totally reworked Elementomancy. All four calls are now granted by the first talent of the reworked tree, Call Elements, and are largely unchanged.

Call Elements
Taking this talent will teach you to call the elements that constitute nature: Fire, Water, Lightning and Nature. Calling an element will cause melee attacks to deal damage based on the element, and your ability to channel the elements also passively increases your resistance and resistance penetration for each element. Additional points in this talent will increase the bonus to on-hit damage and the passive resistance and resistance penetration rating granted, and at raw talent level 5 using a call will not break stealth. Current bonuses:
Attacks deal %d elemental damage, resistance and penetration is increased by %d%% .
You will also gain a different effect for each element:
Nature: melee hits restore %0.2f equilibrium.
Storm: you movement speed will increase by %d%% .
Fire: melee hits have a %d%% chance to burn away one detrimental effect.
Water: melee hits restore %0.2f health.

Elemental Attunement
You become more attune to the elements. You can use your calls more quickly and they gain the following bonuses:
Call usage speed: %d%% of your Mind speed. (Base is 75%, this talents scales it down from 65% to 25% at level 5)
Nature: Hits now also restore %0.2f stamina.
Storm: Now also increases attack speed by %d%% .
Fire: Hits will now also have a %d%% chance to remove a beneficial effect from your target.
Water: Now also increases your resistance to all damage by %d%% .

Elemental Focus (see a pattern here? I got real creative with the names, lol)
Channeling the elements sharpens your senses and heightens your focus. Each element you channel will increase your Defense, Ranged Defense, all Saves, Mindpower and Physical Power by %d . These effects will stack. Additionally, while channeling an element you will gain a bonus to that element's resistance and penetration equal to %d%% of the passive bonus.

Elemental Revenant
Flood your being with elemental power. Your Nature, Acid, Lightning, Fire and Cold damage as well as your Physical and Mind critical rate will increase by %d%%. Activating one of your Calls while Elemental Revenant is active will create an elemental overload. The overload will cause the Call to take a full turn to activate and release a wave of elemental power, causing targets in a radius 5 cone to take %d elemental damage based on the element. Damage will increase with your Willpower. (scales from about 20 to 350. This is less than Wyrmric breaths, which I used for comparison/mostly ripped off.)
Harnessing the elements in this manner increases you control over the natural world, reducing your equilibrium. However, wielding the elements so recklessly will quickly throw nature off balance. Each turn your equilibrium will increase by 10 and a check will be made. If the check fails then Elemental Revenant will automatically be deactivated. (This should remain up for plenty of turns for you to use all four calls. I will probably need to tweak this mechanic, but it's a powerful buff and needs some kind of limitation. )

1.6.1 Psiblade Combat

Added one more tree, this one is a Technique tree that is unlocked at birth and requires the higher of your Dex or Cun.

Psiblade Combat: All talents in this tree will require Psiblades to be active. This is specifically for Psiblade wielders, if you want to go daggers it is useless.(You could potentially main hand a dagger and off hand a Psiblade if you didn't care about using the activated talents in Mindstar Mastery, I suppose. In which case your dagger hits would all also get the benefits of these talents. It's not exactly as intended, but if you want to split up your weapon mastery between your main and off hand that is probably enough of a gimp to balance it out.) All talents in this tree gain a bonus to their effects based on points invested in Mindstar Mastery.

Piercing Mind: (stam sustain)
With intense willpower you are able to focus your Psiblades to the point where they pierce flesh as well as minds. Adds %d pyhsical damage to any attack made with Psiblades active. Damage is based on Dexterity and will receive a bonus for points invested in Mindstar Mastery.

Nimble Combatant: (passively adds effects to Piercing Mind)
Wielding Psiblades is far less encumbering than traditional weapons, and you are able to move more freely in battle. While Piercing Mind is active you will gain %d Ranged Defense and Physical Save and each time you move you will have a %d%% chance to gain 20%% global speed for one turn. Chance to boost speed will increase with talent level and points invested in Mindstar Mastery.

Combat Focus:(another stam sustain)
You focus your mind on combat to boost your physical speed and power. Attack speed will increase by %d%% and physical crit rate by %d%% . Concentrating on combat slows your mind's ability to unleash mental powers, reducing your mind speed by %d%% and Mindpower by %d . Speed is based on Willpower. Crit rate and power reduction are based on Dexterity. All values are affected by a bonus from points invested in Mindstar Mastery.

Psiblade Master:(passive)
Your training with Mindstars has made you a master over them and the forces they manipulate. You passively gain %d%% Mind, Nature and Physical resistance penetration. You are completely in tune with your weapons and all attacks made while Psiblades is active will have a %d%% chance to increase your Mind, Nature, and Physical resistance penetration and damage by %d%% for 3 turns. Base power scales with your Cunning and all values will gain a bonus based on points invested in Mindstar Mastery.


I realized as I was looking at the code to grab the descriptions that I forgot to make the bonus on Combat Focus reduce the Mindspeed and Mindpower penalty. The bonus currently increases the attack speed and crit rate, but will also increase the penalty. I will probably get that patched before the end of the day.

Caught what I think is another minor oversight while you're at the small things: should ecoport be capitalized? When I look at the talent's description, it feels like it should be Ecoport.

Heh, yeah, it should be. Find & replace got me again I thought I had fixed that, but maybe it was in a version that didn't get saved. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll get it sorted.

Fake edit: I just checked and I believe it is correct in the most recent version. If you have the add on active then the ToME launcher should update it automatically (I have consistently updated the add on version number which I believe is all it should take for the launcher to auto-update). I know I've done a lot of updates in a fairly short time period, so if you're playing a character that was started with an older version then the change won't be in effect. Next add on I work on I will try to have mostly developed before I release it; this one was a learning project for me.

1.6.2
Patched. Points in Combat Focus will still increase the power and penalty, but the bonus gained from investment in Mindstar Mastery will now add to the power of the effect and /reduce/ the penalty. As originally intended, of course
Also made an adjustment to the Mindstar Mastery bonus of all Psiblade Combat talents so that it scales with the talents /level/ rather than /raw level/. Only makes a minor difference to effect power, but it will make investing a cat point possibly worthwhile (would have had no effect at all before) if you feel like spending one that way.

Also, I forget which version, I think the Elementomancy Rework, changed Prowl so that it also adds resistance to pin, knockback and stun/freeze. This was something the class could definitely use and Prowl was kind of lacking as a fourth level talent. I changed it in the info in the original post, but I didn't specifically point it out.

Ah, I see. It's fine now after making a new one. My character was a little old compared to the current version, so that was indeed the reason.

This is only true if you get the addon via steam, I think.

Hmm. I read a post that lead me to believe it would be updated from the add on menu in the non-steam launcher, if the version number was updated. Someone posted a PSA about version number a while back, but I guess I can't actually verify it off the top of my head. I'd have to look into it. Unfortunately I haven't been able to use Steam on my computer since the last client update (I have an old, shit iMac, my OS probably isn't supported any more, but ToME was the only game I was playing so I didn't look into it too hard.) So Prowler is not on Steam :/

Some changes made to the way Focus interacts with Damage Shields. It no longer does.

My team of dedicated testers (i.e. 'me') discovered a bug that I thought I had checked for, but apparently did not. I had tested it to see if it would refresh Damage Shields as well (it would), but I neglected to see what would happen if Nature Shield was already up and I used, say, a shield rune.
Bad things. Bad things happened.
Anyway, it's fixed now. Focus will not generate a shield if a Damage Shield is already in effect. If a Nature Shield and Damage Shield are ever both in effect (e.g. if Focus has generated a Nature Shield that is still in effect and you use a shield rune) at the beginning of the player's turn then both will be deactivated. This fits the lore better anyway.
To be clear, "Damage Shield" is the actual name of the magical, damage-shielding effect (no matter whether it is gained from a rune or a talent, such as Barrier). The functionality of the "Nature Shield" effect and its interaction with Focus has not changed. It still creates and refreshes the same Nature Shield effect (though I did lower the starting power slightly, since I was in there anyway and had noticed it was a little over-powered when you can first get it at level 4).