New Class Idea: Chromaticist

[Sirrocco]

See - this is actually what I was arguing against. If you take radiant, and split it into three equal parts, you should not be getting "cold, fire, and lightning". That's like saying that mixing cold, fire, and lightning should get you radiant damage. Instead, it should be like the Maj'Eyal version of theoretical physics. If you split a proton, the thing you get out the other end are quarks - and quarks are *weird*.

If you want to skip out on the "we're doing funny things with light here" idea, and go with the rest of the structure, I think there's enough beef to put together an elementalist power type - though that one might suffer thematically a bit by being too close to archmages. I'd think the closest you'd want to come to normal power types...

Well, you could sell fire/lightning/arcane, but that leaves a question of which thing to get which color. Getting cold out of light doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Lightning (yellow)/Arcane (magenta)/Temporal (cyan) could work as base types, though I'd rather see Temporal/Arcane/Blight for the creep factor, especially since that muddies the waters of color enough that it's clearly not trying to make them fit our preconceptions, and brings out the idea that maybe the other Celestials are *right* when they suggest that cracking Light into its component types is a terrible idea with potentially horrifying consequences.

[TheSlayer]

I've had a lot of time to think it over, and what I've come up with is a kind of "mentalist archmage" with no bizarre new game mechanics (energy types etc.) and a reasonable lore fit.

"Some believe that the forces of the world can be broken down into common components, and that every other manipulation of reality can be reduced to utilizing these ethereal properties. Believing that they have reached the core of all understanding, these powerful psychics see reality as a conglomerate of three simple principles, which they describe as being closest to 'colors.' Blurring the line between magic and mentalism, they align themselves with these polaric principles with varying degrees of success."

My suggested approach still offers a clear way of creating a class that will be the most versatile and replayable in the game. And no, it won't really be close to archmages at all. Remember that the affinities are polar, and investing in one is detrimental to the others. Heck, if this is outside of your desired vision for the class, it deserves its own topic. Something that DG would have a blast with too.

[The Revanchist]

See - this is actually what I was arguing against. If you take radiant, and split it into three equal parts, you should not be getting "cold, fire, and lightning". That's like saying that mixing cold, fire, and lightning should get you radiant damage. Instead, it should be like the Maj'Eyal version of theoretical physics. If you split a proton, the thing you get out the other end are quarks - and quarks are *weird*.

If you want to skip out on the "we're doing funny things with light here" idea, and go with the rest of the structure, I think there's enough beef to put together an elementalist power type - though that one might suffer thematically a bit by being too close to archmages. I'd think the closest you'd want to come to normal power types...

Well, you could sell fire/lightning/arcane, but that leaves a question of which thing to get which color. Getting cold out of light doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Lightning (yellow)/Arcane (magenta)/Temporal (cyan) could work as base types, though I'd rather see Temporal/Arcane/Blight for the creep factor, especially since that muddies the waters of color enough that it's clearly not trying to make them fit our preconceptions, and brings out the idea that maybe the other Celestials are *right* when they suggest that cracking Light into its component types is a terrible idea with potentially horrifying consequences.

Perfect! This class will grow much more with people disagreeing over it! We'll just have to determine what "weird" is in this case. And I suppose, for all intents and purposes, damage that makes sense isn't expected or required. So lets have at it!

I'm not against setting up custom damage, either. Something could be Arcane+Blight, another Fire+Lightning, and a third being Physical+Temporal. For example. If we're going for weird, then all bets are off.

@TheSlayer: Against my vision? Yes. Totally against my core concept here? No. If anything, we can keep it in here, and have me make two classes. A whole class pack, with a recurring theme, no less!

[The Revanchist]

Double post... Ah well.

In regards to the Mentalist Archmage, I think it has potential. Essentially three subclasses at once, where a full investment into one effectively cripples the other two? (Or however many polars you want, really)

That would make for an interesting class, indeed.

[TheSlayer]

You have firmly grasped the core of my personal vision for a 'chromatist.' An writing that sentence has made me realize that the topic title may be grammatically incorrect. I'd like to see the "grand unification theory of Eyal" basically in this class. And your attendant bonuses and talents can be quite powerful, as the need to balance the penalties will heavily cut your ability to boost specific damage types. You need to make up that -xy resistance penalty, so you can't just slap on equipment to boost z.

How many trees? How about 4 unlocked, 4 locked? R-G-B or whatever, one of each unlocked and one locked, and 1 utility/unification tree unlocked and one higher unification tree locked? As for generics, I have a few more ideas as well. As for the "ugh, red=fire" complaint, I suggest closer attention to detail regarding the actual content of the post. I'd be against something so bland myself, but as you'll see that is entirely a strawman produced by poor reading comprehension or poor writing

[The Revanchist]

You have firmly grasped the core of my personal vision for a 'chromatist.' An writing that sentence has made me realize that the topic title may be grammatically incorrect. I'd like to see the "grand unification theory of Eyal" basically in this class. And your attendant bonuses and talents can be quite powerful, as the need to balance the penalties will heavily cut your ability to boost specific damage types. You need to make up that -xy resistance penalty, so you can't just slap on equipment to boost z.

So this could essentially be an ubernuke? Have it stacked (or stackable) in one way that provides serious penalties for the other(S)?

How many trees? How about 4 unlocked, 4 locked? R-G-B or whatever, one of each unlocked and one locked, and 1 utility/unification tree unlocked and one higher unification tree locked? As for generics, I have a few more ideas as well. As for the "ugh, red=fire" complaint, I suggest closer attention to detail regarding the actual content of the post. I'd be against something so bland myself, but as you'll see that is entirely a strawman produced by poor reading comprehension or poor writing

I was thinking, for the Chromaturg, it's Apotheosis tree, 1-2 utility talent trees with one locked, between 1 and 4 trees for it's "zone" attacks, with the third or fourth locked, and I like the concept of a unification tree. I'd probably have a Unification tree as an extra-locked tree, starting at level 22, maybe.

For our new class with no name (the other Chromaticist?) it might be a better fit for a GUT. Using fundamental forces instead of mystical ones...

Generics would probably be the toughest for me. Feel free to hack away at it.

[MalReynolds]

Have only followed previous posts a bit--sorry if I overlap or have missed something.

This needs to be, and should be, very graphics-heavy. I think something like What Dreams May Come, or those Indian celebrations where everyone throws colored powder at each other, and even the ground becomes like a chaotic rainbow.

As for AoE vs direct, maybe you can do both. Talent Prism Burst: Sustained: when you shoot a beam of your current color or a chosen color, the beam leaves behind a trail, like Temporal Wake but remaining on the ground; you also simultaneously randomly shoot out 3-5 weaker beams at random angles and random lengths and spanning the spectrum of colors. Each of these beams damages initially and then does DoT. Also, you can choose to "slide" along any of these beams at no movement energy cost to its end (yes, I am thinking of leprechauns and rainbows, but let's not mention them ever again explicitly, please!), soaking up the beam. I can imagine a zig zag pattern of vectors on a dungeon room floor, and the more you use, the more AoE there is and the more mobility you have.

Keep in mind that light can be both laser-like (a coherent beam-source) and burst-like (an incoherent point-source). There's lots of possibilities there.

Maybe after you get a good zig-zag patten going, you can use something like "Recombine Colors" and it pulls in everything on the floor and blasts it out, or absorbs it helpfully.

[The Revanchist]

I was actually hoping for a mechanic to facilitate movement. After all, a motionless class is a dead class.

I'll be expanding this, I think it has potential.

[The Revanchist]

Great news! I've successfully "made" the addon, and am working on adding... content.

Shouldn't be long now.

EDIT: By "shouldn't be long", I mean a few days. Sorry if that inspired false hope.

In other news, I'm growing to like the Arcane/Temporal/Blight mix. Weird enough to fit, and powerful enough to work. Plus, we can add a lot of debilitating/empowering abilities with those damage categories. In short, they seem like the best choices.

Something to mull over too. Since this class is taking something decidedly "natural", ie light, and turning it into such a perversion of the natural way, should they have a crippling or at least strong intolerance of nature? Or perhaps being "super-effective"? I've only just thought about it now, so ideas there are welcome.

[Xanmyral]

Gotta say, this idea is pretty neat. I admit to having read half, skimmed the rest, so if these ideas seem off, that's probably why.

I'm pretty surprised that crystals or gems aren't talked about much, considering the bent on light based powers here. It might be an interesting idea to have the Chromatist have the ability to raise/create crystals (possibly by using gems) that possibly enhance, change, or interact with their light abilities to some degree. Maybe if you set one up in front of you and shoot rays of light through it, the rays are enhanced or changed to some degree?

An interesting idea, not only AOE fields that condense, but why not also interact with each other? After all, colors often mix together. Perhaps if one were to lay a red and a blue field on top of each other, you get an entirely different effect, same with yellow and blue, and yellow and red. Or perhaps you can localize the effect by 'tinting' a creature in a color, thus having them interact with fields differently. Layer all of them on top of each other and you probably get something nasty.

On the lore side of it, a support of the 'red color does fire' and etc could be pointed towards the large crystal formations that assault you in the starting Shaloren caverns, and the end boss is a giant multihued crystal of the spellblaze which prompted those crystals to grow in the first place, as in the lore its stated the crystals were a rather new development. Considering the idea of using blight as one of the elements, and the relation to the colored crystals to the spellblaze, well, its pretty interesting.

Not only that, but take dragon/drake scales and how they often are of similar coloration of the type of dragon/drake has them. There's pretty clear support of 'coloration == element,' and its stated as something that isn't well known in the current lore if I recall right, at least when dealing with drakes and dragons.

[Sirrocco]

If we're starting with "irreverent splinter celestials", then the light they're working with is arcane to begin with (or at least magic-based). If we're starting with "grasping a fundamental truth about the universe - splitting light is a convenient metaphor that lets us make at least some sense of the whole thing" then it's possible that Nature is particularly displeased.

[The Revanchist]

I'm pretty surprised that crystals or gems aren't talked about much, considering the bent on light based powers here. It might be an interesting idea to have the Chromatist have the ability to raise/create crystals (possibly by using gems) that possibly enhance, change, or interact with their light abilities to some degree. Maybe if you set one up in front of you and shoot rays of light through it, the rays are enhanced or changed to some degree?

If this is at all possible, I'll be trying to incorporate it. Whether it makes the final cut or not... we'll see.

An interesting idea, not only AOE fields that condense, but why not also interact with each other? After all, colors often mix together. Perhaps if one were to lay a red and a blue field on top of each other, you get an entirely different effect, same with yellow and blue, and yellow and red. Or perhaps you can localize the effect by 'tinting' a creature in a color, thus having them interact with fields differently. Layer all of them on top of each other and you probably get something nasty.

I hadn't drawn up plans for this yet. But it was "planned". As for tinting a creature, that sounds interesting.

On the lore side of it, a support of the 'red color does fire' and etc could be pointed towards the large crystal formations that assault you in the starting Shaloren caverns, and the end boss is a giant multihued crystal of the spellblaze which prompted those crystals to grow in the first place, as in the lore its stated the crystals were a rather new development. Considering the idea of using blight as one of the elements, and the relation to the colored crystals to the spellblaze, well, its pretty interesting.

Have you seen Magenta, Cyan or Yellow dragons? Maybe Storm or Cold drakes for Cyan, but that's beside the point. In any event, if you can convince enough people, I will be swayed from a Temporal/Arcane/Blight blend of damage. Because it'll take some convincing.

Not only that, but take dragon/drake scales and how they often are of similar coloration of the type of dragon/drake has them. There's pretty clear support of 'coloration == element,' and its stated as something that isn't well known in the current lore if I recall right, at least when dealing with drakes and dragons.

Probably should have grouped this up there...
We'll see what works best/the most enjoyably.

If we're starting with "irreverent splinter celestials", then the light they're working with is arcane to begin with (or at least magic-based). If we're starting with "grasping a fundamental truth about the universe - splitting light is a convenient metaphor that lets us make at least some sense of the whole thing" then it's possible that Nature is particularly displeased.

So Natural things (infusions, equilibrium, nature damage, etc.) have adverse effects? Or even just some of those.

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Does anyone know the relevant files for adding a resource bar? 3 in my case, but that's largely irrelevant. I've done some digging, and I think it involves Superloading, and "Actor" files. Haven't found the exact details yet though...

[The Revanchist]

Since I'm already so invested in learning about all those interesting things you can do with the T engine, it can't hurt to ask...

Everyone is on board with a standard Celestial start, or should we come up with a unique one? I'm not against making maps, quests, and whatever else I need to. It might even be fun. Just shoot the ideas this way.

[Mewtarthio]

Flee from persecution! You've had it with the Sunwall and their monochromatic ways. Zemekkys is more than willing to help you out (he could use the experimental subjects), but, alas, he's been forbidden from working with your kind, so you'll have to meet outside of the Sunwall. As you approach the rendevouz point, though, you get the feeling that something's very wrong...

Three-level "Forest" map. Boss is a temporal horror of some sort. Next to the boss, Zemekkys has ensconced himself in a semi-permanent Time Prison, and won't come out until the boss is dead.

[The Revanchist]

Flee from persecution! You've had it with the Sunwall and their monochromatic ways. Zemekkys is more than willing to help you out (he could use the experimental subjects), but, alas, he's been forbidden from working with your kind, so you'll have to meet outside of the Sunwall. As you approach the rendevouz point, though, you get the feeling that something's very wrong...

Three-level "Forest" map. Boss is a temporal horror of some sort. Next to the boss, Zemekkys has ensconced himself in a semi-permanent Time Prison, and won't come out until the boss is dead.

I like it. Depending on how it turns out, I might even change the Sunwall dialogue to reflect their... joy... at your return.

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In other news, progress is slow. Lots and lots of things to go wrong. And I haven't even gotten into the meat and bones of the thing.