ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Strictly out of curiosity, what does a mindstar look like and how the heck do you attack someone with it? I have a very stupid picture in my head of a character hitting a monster with a mossy/thorny/pulsating rock.

That's, uh. Pretty much exactly what they are, going by the shockbolt tiles.

As for attacking with them, well. You hit them. With the rock. Psi-blades give a little psionic stabby bit, but generally you just kinda' smack whichever end you prefer into the enemy. Presumably with your brain or something, I'unno.

E: Then again, wishful thinking is probably all that's going to let you pierce dragonhide with some moldy rock you picked up off the ground, so... I guess that's their special power or somethin'. Kinda' like ork weapons, y'dig? You think it'll hurt hard enough and... it does. Neat stuff!

Bear in mind, mindstars use Willpower instead of Dexterity to hit, don't take physical stats into account for damage dealing, and deal nature/mind damage instead of physical. I don't think you just hit people over the head with them. I imagine them floating slightly above your hands, shooting psychic laser beams or something.

I prefer to imagine them as blade-shaped shards of stone.

But let's be honest; they're really just mossy rocks

Mewtarthio wrote:Bear in mind, mindstars use Willpower instead of Dexterity to hit, don't take physical stats into account for damage dealing, and deal nature/mind damage instead of physical. I don't think you just hit people over the head with them. I imagine them floating slightly above your hands, shooting psychic laser beams or something.

I almost agree with your explanation. ^^

The mindstars use Willpower instead of dexterity to hit, because the mind is used in conjunction with arm gestures to fling the stones around. The mindstars are natural stones found out specifically tuned to mindpower. In my imagination it looks like a jedi using the Force. The stones themselves stay within about 3 feet of the wielder, but do not touch him.

Except you're limited to two, and they tie up your hand slots. To me, that suggests holding them (and Shockbolt seems to agree). We know that they can be tuned to generate psiblades, and that doing so extends their existing functionality (by increasing the extent to which the wielder's mind enhances them) rather than adding a new feature. I thus assume that they naturally produce some kind of short-range forcefield whose motion is mentally directed.

Putting down the facts:
*They are items that can be carried and wielded one per hand
*Shockbolts art indicates them as physical items, as most things that can be carried are
*You use Willpower rather than Dexterity to hit, so your physical movement capability is not a priority to hit with them
*Willpower and cunning increase damage
*They have high armor piercing
*Psiblades are definitly blades, but still don't require dexterity to hit
*They have a melee range
*Onhit effects are effective when using mindstars and I assume you can coat them in poison (have not tested this)

I think beams are unlikely, since turning them into psiblades increases your hit chance with them. Considering their high armor piercing and willpower dependence I'd wager they are mindpowered attacks, even those that deal nature damage.

Here's how I imagine the attacks to work: you hold a mindstar in your hand, then when you attack an enemy it lunges itself towards the enemies mind like metal does towards a magnet. When it hits, it discharges a shock. With psiblades, it just pierces blade first. Then the stone returns to your hand to recharge.

Ofcourse, the willpower rather than dexterity depedend aiming could also be because you're reading your opponent's intentions and just smack the stone where that opponent intends to go.

Velorien wrote:Except you're limited to two, and they tie up your hand slots. To me, that suggests holding them (and Shockbolt seems to agree). We know that they can be tuned to generate psiblades, and that doing so extends their existing functionality (by increasing the extent to which the wielder's mind enhances them) rather than adding a new feature. I thus assume that they naturally produce some kind of short-range forcefield whose motion is mentally directed.

So... If you read my post again you would read that hand gestures are used to move the stones around. This limits the number of usable mindstones by two.

As NEHZ states, the rest of the facts do not suggest that there is direct line of contact from user to mindstone to target. This points to one of two solutions; either the mindstones do not hit the target (i.e. they shoot beams, channel willpower into the targets mind) or the user does not touch the mindstones when attacking (i.e. the stones whirling around the user). Because of on-hit effects I think the second solution is more probable. And it is just much cooler to imagine those stones whirling from one target to the next while a robed character gestures wildly.

i still like the idea of a wilder/psion just running angrily towards the enemies and smacking them on the head with a heavy rock.

XLambda wrote:i still like the idea of a wilder/psion just running angrily towards the enemies and smacking them on the head with a heavy rock.

Seems a little unlikely, though a point in this theories favor is that it meets the mental capabilities of the average unwashed zigurist loony.

Since Mindstars do either Nature or Mind damage, I'm not convinced that they leave the weilders hands in any way. That would also be weird if you had Psiblades active.