Essential class/generic points

[lukep]

Many opportunities to break the intent of the game could be removed by flagging some skills as "essential," and preventing a character from unlearning them fully. My suggestions:

Lethality
Fire Infusion
Corrupted Strength
Unnatural Body
Cursed Touch (including from the graveyard)

These skills change a class fundamentally, having both benefits and drawbacks, or else defining another skill (for Fire infusion)

EDIT: Fateful Aura => Cursed Touch. Wrong name, I only meant the first skill, not the tree.

[marvalis]

Alternatively, prevent the player from taking out the first point of any talent. Let him only take out points 2/5 to 5/5.

[Gliktch]

+1 @ marvalis. This sounds pretty reasonable

[Frumple]

... except that would make some starting retool options impossible. I kinda' like playing a mindslayer without any leeches, or ditching bow or sling mastery when I start an archer. If I want to start a pure lightning spec'd arcane blade, I wouldn't be able to with that setup. Mind, I couldn't in earlier versions, either, but I'm definitely liking that aspect of the limited respec system. Edit: It'd also remove one of the major reasons the system was implemented, i.e. testing out new talents to see if you're interested in keeping them.

The alternative here would be to start with player with absolutely no talent points invested, but that'd be hell on new players.

Having certain key talents unable to be unlearned seems like the best way to go about things. There aren't very many that would need to be made essential like that.

[bricks]

Unnatural Body/Cursed Touch seem like the only effects that really matter, since they have considerable drawbacks that are (hopefully) built into the class. Unlearning Lethality is a little odd, though I don't see it being exploitable.

[Grey]

I gotta agree with marvalis - it would prevent so many abuses. Sure it would stop certain options on new characters, but many of those options just don't make sense (such as taking Lethality off rogues, which completely screws up their primary stats). We were fine with it being unchangeable before, so there shouldn't be a real objection to this now. Respeccing is so you can play about with new points, not for messing up core class features.

[Frumple]

Except, again, it would prevent unlearning talents later in the game -- respec was almost specifically implemented so that people can get 1-2 points into a talent they've never tried, see if they like it, and then unlearn it completely if they don't. If talents are made to not be completely unlearnable after that first point investment, you might as well just dump respec entirely. The 1st level retool is just a nice bonus, not the primary reason respec was put in.

Locking in core class features is the way to go, here. It would prevent silliness without basically gutting the respec feature.

[Aquillion]

Yes, just tag some specific talents as impossible to pull the last point out of. No reason to place more draconian restrictions on it than are necessary.

[Nagyhal]

Please! No! Oh heavens, my dreamed-of respec implementation is collapsing before my eyes!

I've already played, as suggested in this thread, Reavers without Corrupted Strength and a Rogue (well, a Shadowblade) that removed Lethality.

Being able to do away with starting talents opens up some very interesting options, mostly either for unorthodox challenge characters, or for starting out with one's basic build concept a lot more fully developed, which is nice and not really imbalancing.

The Reaver retooled its physical talents into Bone Spear, Drain and Virulent Disease, allowing me to flesh out a thoroughly mid-range hybrid from the very beginning of the game that eventually regained those talents so as to employ Bloodlust for increased spell damage. The Shadowblade simply wanted to level Illuminate and improve Dual Strike. Lethality's benefits are palpable even bearing in mind a character's unspecialized starting stats, but it would be a long while before I eventually invested to any great extent in Cunning- in the meantime, Shadow Combat would tide me over with its damage boost.

So, how again is this silly, stupid or just fundamentally broken?

As far as I can tell this proposal doesn't add anything except making people have less fun.

These choices are not screwy so much as viable but fraught with definite drawbacks. A character still has to invest, broadly, in the talent trees provided by its class. These builds reflect no more a departure from the class archetype than does another build that keeps its starting talents but then invests most later talent points in unconventional trees. If the "core" talent trees aren't basically nearly always worth investing in, then they need to be improved.

Really, Cursed Touch is the only talent that should get this treatment. And, so long as the tree remains something that was added to make Cursed better and more interesting rather than to offset any overly strong enhancement to the rest of the class's trees, there's still the potential for the class not to be broken by a respec. After all, what does it mean apart from the option to play a "retro" Cursed? Aside from that, the curse could be made simply an inherent part of unlocking the tree.

[Grey]

Valid points, Nagyhal. I guess the only real issue is learning things from escorts or getting cursed by coffins and being able to respec.

[benli]

If unnatrual body can take out the first generic point then it needs to be recoded to penalize the Cursed and Doomed classes with a -50% healing mod. That would leave only the bonuses as optional. Of course I think those bonuses would almost always be taken by the player.

Fateful Aura is a bigger problem with respecing. If you can respec it then you can pump points into it, get the equipment you want and then take those points back whenever you want some free generic points. All or part of the tree should not allow respecing. I could see the possibility of a one time quest to uncurse you that might give you back your points and permanently remove the curse. That might offer a good compromise solution.

[Silvermoon]

Fateful Aura can be used to alter the world the same way that Imbue Item can be, and should be susceptible to the same limitation.

[magelike]

Everything Nagyhal said. I don't like it when games try to force me to play in a narrow mindset. If I wanted to make a rogue in the style of a berserker who runs around with a great sword, I probably wouldn't want to invest in any of the birth skills (lethality/trap mastery/dual strike - stealth much later on if at all). The game shouldn't try to stop me from doing that. The more options I have for designing my character, the more fun I'll have playing him.