ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This line of thought started as I contemplated how to have the normal "bump" attack be an option for tactical AI to choose from. The specific example was Bill rushing my character and then immediately knocking my character back... a bit counter-productive. The easiest fix for that would be to add a dummy attack talent, which got me thinking why a dummy talent? It then occurred to me that ranged attack is already a talent (Shoot) and that this means Burning Hex will trigger on a ranged attack but not the normal "bump" attack. That seems a bit odd to me. So should attacking become a talent that is given to all actors and that bumping still calls? This means there would be minimal change to the current player experience (Burning Hex would trigger on attacks) but the tactical AI could pick normal attacks over others. Thoughts?

As long as the player does not have to use the talent each time, so as long as it triggers on 'bumping' into the target, then I do not think the player would notice it.
In other words: as long as it is 'under the hood' then I do not see any problems players could have with it.

I thought it already was :/

One would have to be careful that there are not other things that affect talent usage than burning hex which might have a negative impact on melee. Also the burning hex description should be changed to state "on talent use or attacking" as it may not be intuitive otherwise.

Yes it probably should

Does shoot trigger burning hex?

I don't remember it doing so on my Archer Warden and looking at the code it looks like an ability has to have a resource cost to actually trigger the hex.