ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've decided to run a Shalore Adventurer as an aspiring mummy. I figure I'll restrict myself to cold/dark/necro/disease spells and take lichform when I can to complete the "transformation" (making it more of a free-willed mummy transformation, per the informative blurb about Shaloran kings, than the skellie/ghoul approach.) What I've really decided to grit my teeth and bite the bullet over is making him an unarmed fighter, per the classic Universal mummy. More specifically, a grappler. I suck at unarmed fighters, btw. My decision involves running a grappler with the grappling class trees vs using the generic Gesture tree, which seems reasonably thematic for a mummy (at least slightly more so than one that uses headlocks and body slams rather than just choking enemies to death, heh.) If I understand the description of the Gesture tree properly, running those talents would completely replace any advantages I might gain from the Unarmed class trees. I'm guessing the Activated Grappling talents supersede the Sustained Gestures, but I assume the Sustained Gestures override the passsive Unarmed Training talents, so it seems a bit wasteful to invest heavily on both sides if they're mutually exclusive during any given attack. So I have two questions: 1) Am I correct in that assessment, making it pretty much an either/or situation? 2) If so, which do y'all think I should go with? (Also, as an ancillary to question 2, does anyone think it's feasible to have Gesture as one's sole melee attack, keeping in mind that, while I'll have spells, I'm restricting myself rather narrowly and thus intend to run the character as heavily melee on occasion, especially against the sort of opponents that are largely immune to cold and dark...of which there are plenty.)

Thanks for any help.

Hunter wrote:I'm guessing the Activated Grappling talents supersede the Sustained Gestures, but I assume the Sustained Gestures override the passsive Unarmed Training talents, so it seems a bit wasteful to invest heavily on both sides if they're mutually exclusive during any given attack. So I have two questions: 1) Am I correct in that assessment, making it pretty much an either/or situation?

I've only used Gestures when playing Doomed, so I can't really say definitely, but I my guess would be: yes, either or.

Hunter wrote: 2) If so, which do y'all think I should go with? (Also, as an ancillary to question 2, does anyone think it's feasible to have Gesture as one's sole melee attack, keeping in mind that, while I'll have spells, I'm restricting myself rather narrowly and thus intend to run the character as heavily melee on occasion, especially against the sort of opponents that are largely immune to cold and dark...of which there are plenty.)

Well, I liked Gestures a lot on my Doomed's. That's with the following supporting conditions though:

• high mindpower - this one you should have, too, if you're going to have high willpower for the arcane magic
• high crit rate - this you may not have, and I think the damage was conceived for use by high cunning Doomed
• massive +mind: you probably won't have that either
• synergy with Punishments/Madness: Doomed should have that one at 5/5, so every Gesture bump attack has a chance for nasty debuffs
• synergy with mind damage from other sources: with Doomed, a big thing with Gestures is to use the mind res reduction effect one of the talents give to supercharge your mind damage spells, which are all of your spells if you take Tyranny of Mind as you should as a Doomed. That'll be very nice if you plan on going Tyranny of Mind with your Mummy dude as well, much less so if not (and it doesn't seem to fit the theme you're going for). It's still going to boost subsequent Gesture attacks, but that's not in the same league.

So, I suspect you might find Gestures a bit anaemic without the Doomed support infrastructure in place, but it'll probably still be pretty decent, if only for the ranged damage reduction the 4th talent grants. It's probably a better choice than physical grappling, since as an arcane caster you'll be running the stats for it at least partially.

Thanks, that's quite a helpful analysis. I'm guessing you use mindstars for the mind bonuses. I was trying to avoid that because it didn't seem very thematic for a "mummy," but I think I'll have to make at least one or two compromises if I want to survive past the early game. Maybe they're very special mummified mindstars. I'll just resist the temptation to open Mindstar Mastery, since that's very definitely natural, being a Wild Gift tree. Plus I'm not even certain what would happen to my access to it once I become an undead. I went with Gloom, so willpower stacking won't be an issue, and, if my math is correct, I'll have plenty of points to spare for Punishments. The part I'm curious about is how well I'll manage Hate as a non-Cursed, but we'll see.

Right now, I'm not really an arcane caster. I have a Necro tree unlocked, and will unlock another before it's over, but I have a certain range of freedom with stats. Mostly I've bolstered Magic, Willpower, and Cunning. Strength, dex and constitution can wait, especially since they're not relevant to either Gestures or my main offensive approaches right now.

Thanks for your advice. I was leery about Gestures because the damage seemed like it would be weak by midgame, but obviously many people have made it work (I've only ever played melee Cursed myself, and never made it past Dreadfall with a Cursed character.)

Gesture of Power and Gesture of Guarding could be used with unarmed fighting, as they do not require the Gesture attack.

HousePet wrote:Gesture of Power and Gesture of Guarding could be used with unarmed fighting, as they do not require the Gesture attack.

That's definitely a point, especially Gesture of Guarding (I'd have to get decent mindpower attacks for Gesture of Power to be relevant to normal grappling. Perhaps a set of psionic gloves?) I already opened and built the Gesture tree, so I'll wait until my next incarnation to see if I can synergize Gesture of Power with an effective grappling approach.