ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hello

I successfully made the Summon Control wild gift work so now we can have the player switchng bodies!

So .. Possessors, how would you envision them in T4 rules ? What talents ?

I was never too keen on the old possessor style - you animated a dead body... so really more animation than possession.

What might be a way to go would be a Will Vs Will contest with live bodies - failure resulting in an enraged NPC, but success means possession...

Increasing this talent increases your bonus in the Will Vs WIll contest.

Once you relinquish control of the possessed one, you still have to deal with an enraged NPC...

So this really means we could have 2 new classes: Possessors and Animators

Yes I had planned to do a "domination" corruption for the blight powers.

But that, and a possesion ala T2, does not justify a class. It is still one talent.
What else could be the talents ?

I am thinking about it but nothing really is coming to (mind)...

primarily because my idea of possessors looks a lot like mindcrafters (if they are separate), (combine them maybe?) (and the more I think of it, the better it sounds) Though I do suppose that possessors are more mind affecting and mindcrafters are more mind utilizing. (edit, actually possessors would be more mind pacifying and mincrafters more mind damaging. hmmmm.

maybe a read mind talent where you infiltrate the mind and learn a random talent that they know? (max amount of talents able to learn this way increases with level)

and a mind damage (where possess and then damage their mind)

and a persuade (charm a mind)

my suggestion would be to make a list of both mindcraft and possession powers and then decide which goes where.

If I recall, in the Two Towers movie (although I don't think it is in the book), Saruman, who was apparently possessing Theoden's body and mind, was thrown out by Gandalf in a contest of wills.

(Runs away, dodging thrown objects because of a mention of that movie untrue to the book.)

Possessor Talents (assumes some sort of contest takes place)

Really important: This will not work on Undead!!!

ID = Gives you info on the NPC, at higher levels gives you knowledge of spells NPC can cast

Move! = Forces NPC to move somewhere, higher levels extends duration of Move!

Attack! = Forces NPC to attack a given square.

Cast! = Cast a spell NPC is capable of casting

Dominate! = Take full control of NPC

Animator Talents

Really important: This will not work on Living Creatures!!!

ID = Gives you info on the corpse, at higher levels gives you knowledge of spells corpse can cast

Move! = Forces corpse to move somewhere, higher levels extends duration of Move!

Attack! = Forces corpse to attack a given square.

Cast! = Cast a spell corpse is capable of casting

Dominate! = Take full control of corpse

the thing is, is animators become very similar to necromancers then.... hmmm....

Yes indeed there is a precedent in the movies

I like the mindcraft/possessor merge idea: the Mindwalker ? (no not chuck norris!)

* Telepathy
- Telepath: sense the minds of monsters around
- Dominate: temporary pet
- Mind Control: temporary posses a living target
- Possession: take permanent control

* Psychokinesis
* Psychoportation
...

Shoob wrote:the thing is, is animators become very similar to necromancers then.... hmmm....

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet!

I like the list that DG has come up with as well! Better!

yeah... that looks good.... hmmm

dont forget to make a mindless thing for monsters (jellies, oozes, undeads, plants, should all be mindless).

and maybe undeads can lash back at you if you do it on them, hehehe

darkgod wrote: the Mindwalker ? (no not chuck norris!)

The Mentalist?

or do 2 ones with different talent modifiers...

mindcrafters get higher modifiers in damage dealing ones, and possessors get higher modifiers in the mind control ones.

(tempting to call the possessors body-snatchers, hehehe)

Shoob wrote:tempting to call the possessors body-snatchers, hehehe

Brilliant - I like it!

I've always liked the idea of possessors in principle, but thought they were badly realized. The real issue in my opinion was that there were really only comparatively few bodies suited for possession. ToME2 basically had a fixed progression of corpses to collect, with many being objectively better than the lesser varieties. This made for a rather boring gameplay, as you didn't really have a lot of choice in your selection of bodies nor a lot of ability to experiment.

So maybe it would be better if possession wasn't the focus of a single class, but something from which every class can benefit? To do that, I think it should provide a number of uses in and of itself, rather than just being something that only becomes useful to a character actively centered around possessing things.

ID = Gives you info on the NPC, at higher levels gives you knowledge of spells NPC can cast
Move! = Forces NPC to move somewhere, higher levels extends duration of Move!
Attack! = Forces NPC to attack a given square.
Cast! = Cast a spell NPC is capable of casting
Dominate! = Take full control of NPC

Some of these already sounds pretty good, but I think it doesn't really justify investing talent points into possession just yet. Forcing monsters to cast spells is one thing, but who would invest talent point to make a single monster attack a single square for one turn?

One thing I really liked about Possessors was how even one point in possession effectively gave you a second (or even more) chances at life if you were clever. Die, retreat into a wall (personal mod), and grab a new corpse as soon as you can, even if it is worse than what you used to have. As such, I think it would be an interesting idea to combine the necromantic Undead Form talent of old with the Possessor class and create a talent tree that maybe looks like this:

Possession - You can attempt to possess exchange bodies with another creatures in a contested roll. Should you die, you will become an invisible, invincible spirit unable to affect anything or leave the level. Should you fail to possess another creature in a contested roll (with a penalty of X%) within Y turns, your spirit dissolves and you are lost forever.

Access attacks - You are capable of accessing the special abilities of your body. These can be any X special attacks of your choosing, but changing or first selecting which abilities you access takes you 10 turns per changed ability.

Access defenses - You are capable of accessing the special defenses of your body. These can be any X special defenses of your choosing, but changing or first selecting which abilities you access takes you 10 turns per changed ability.

Mutate - You can transfer a maximum of X ability points between your current body's status scores, representing your ability to command the flesh of others. These points can be applied in any configuration of your choosing but must belong to the purely physical abilities and cannot exceed the total of X.

Maybe Possession could be split into the actual "transfer between bodies" ability and the "create spirit form" ability, which could then grant bonuses to possession rolls or extra time in spirit form. The time requirement of Access Attacks/Defenses would help to limit the utility of the skillset as a free resurrection, because possessing a weaponless (and possibly magic-incapable) body without access to its abilities or spells would probably mean that you quickly die again.

Anyway, I think something like this would help balance Possession and make it more interesting at the same time, because you would get to choose your bodies more for tactical advantages (like possessing a fireproof body in a fire-themed dungeon, or buffing your own body against a particularly strong-hitting but low-HP enemy) than because they make you strictly more powerful across the board. There could be some additional abilities centered around mind control like those madmonk suggested, which would help make the talent tree interesting for characters not centered around regularly switching bodies.

Just a reminder - now creatures have a 'type' and 'subtype', which could be used to limit WHAT you can possess.
For example, possessing humanoids and mundane animals might be easiest, but other creatures(drakes, magical beasts) would require special talents.