Brainstorming a race to be "natural" Reavers/Sun Paladins

[Lubaf]

Okay, one of the things that annoys me is that Reavers and Sun Paladins have no "natural" race choice, unlike every other class in the game. (Highers don't count, as they're more +1 to almost everything, which isn't really the same. We're talking at least a +2 to MAG and STR, with a corresponding penalty)

To start with: What would a race that was a +STR and +MAG be like?

The obvious answer: That depends on what stat you gimp in order to get there. -DEX gives you an smart-Ogre-like race (comparable to the original Scandinavian Troll), while -CON gives you an Elf-like race (possibly an offshoot of the Shalore), and -WIL and -CUN I'll leave to another to suggest; I'll pause here to ask: Which would be more interesting, with the sidenote that they explicitly are required to be able to be Sun Paladins, so lore would need to be stretched for the Ogre race, and almost as much for the Shalore cousins.

So, which is preferred for development?

Thanks
Luc "Ideas" French

[donkatsu]

A few stat points are mostly irrelevant compared to the skill trees. Shalore could be -4 Str -4 Mag +7 Wil and they'd still make the best Sun Paladins because of Timeless. The stats are basically just flavor. So when you're designing a race to fill a certain niche, start with the skills, not stats.

[HousePet]

Designing a race to go with a class is icky.
Typecasting and racial stereotyping is bad.

The best bit about race class interactions is how you play the class differently based on your race.
Like Yeek and Shaloren tend to be more caster, Dwarf and Thalore tend to be more melee.
Well, that is how I end up playing.

[Lubaf]

Designing a race to go with a class is icky.
Typecasting and racial stereotyping is bad.

While true, every other class has an "obvious" race to go with it, except the pairing of Reavers and Sun Paladins. It's a gap that feels like it could be filled with something.

A few stat points are mostly irrelevant compared to the skill trees. Shalore could be -4 Str -4 Mag +7 Wil and they'd still make the best Sun Paladins because of Timeless. The stats are basically just flavor. So when you're designing a race to fill a certain niche, start with the skills, not stats.

Yes, but I'm trying to figure out which 'flavor' of niche I should go for: the Shalore's more timely cousins, or Ogre Magi-types. The skills flow from that: Do I emphasize subtle trickery, or brute force?

So, what I'm asking is: which is the more interesting, with the caveat that they must be able to be Sun Paladins?

Thanks
Luc "Query" French

[astreoth]

could do vampires as enemies they get high str and mag so they'd fit the kind of stats your going for, and as an undead race you could give them very powerful racials.

[Hogulus]

Although I'm totally on board with ogre-magi or vampires (especially ogre-magi if you can manage it, so few games manage to make them "work"), a few more suggestions:

• Golems. Imbued with arcane energy, check. Big and strong, check. Hamfisted, low on constitution (depending on construction; could be a relatively fragile clay golem, or you could make it more durable), probably not clever enough to deal with anything but direct orders, and not built with any will of their own? Check, check, check, check.
• Poltergeists. Known for magical trickery and throwing stuff around.
• Horrors or demons, beastly figures pulsing with uncontrollable blighted magic. Raises the question of how a player character could end up as one, of course... maybe one managed to regain his sanity, or only his/her body was warped by the corrupting process, not his/her mind? If you wanted to go the WoW Draenei route, they could be the uncorrupted form of some demon or other, an alien race from a planet that was devoured by blight.
• Dark/Deep Dwarves, like D&D's Duergar. Shadowy spellcasters that dig through the earth, not in search of gold but so they can live in hiding, practicing their magic deep below watching eyes.
• Ooze King/Queen, a conglomeration of merged oozes which has managed to acquire sentience, probably by devouring some hapless mage.
• Subjects, the quasi-human descendants of escapees from the Halfling Complex. Mutated by the halflings' arcane experiments, they have monstrous strength and are flowing with residual energy, but the muscles and magic put tremendous strain on their bodies and minds.
• Sher'Vol, an ancient, forgotten genetic-engineering experiment by the Sher'Tul to make disposable foot-soldiers, which could keep the lesser races in line while they tackled bigger problems (like gods). Nearly all are dead, for obvious reasons, but a few may lie in untouched Sher'Tul ruins, trapped in stasis by still-active machinery.
• Redcaps, a particularly vicious sort of gnome or goblin. Tend to use their magic to torment others, and known for dyeing their caps with the blood of their victims. Again, raises the question of how one would become a neutral-or-good PC...

[Planetus]

Golems! Yes, yes, yes! This was exactly what I was about to suggest. Build with massive strength and attunement to magic (ask any alchemist), but with low cunning, less willpower, and maybe not much dexterity. Constitution would probably also be high, though. A passive racial skill that grants armor and damage resist ALL, an active/passive skill to grant physical power and spell power, maybe a magic beam talent and a physical slam talent?

Poltergeists, meh. In most stories, poltergeists are ghosts or spirits, and thus have no physical form, so probably not very strong. Though maybe their first undead talent, which usually boosts 2 stats, instead ties Str to Mag (growing % boost with talent, so constant feedback), but gives them some penalties to compensate for it? Not really sure what else to do with them.

Horrors and demons, Str + Mag = Check, but where to go from there? A talent that granted a third weapon slot (think 3 arms or tentacles or something) at level 5 would be awesome, but may not blend easily with a telekinetic slot.

Dark/Deep Dwarves, given the official second Dwarven starting dungeon, I'm guessing that would actually tie you to the Horrors/Demons path, so same stuff.

Ooze King/Queen, completely un-loric, but sounds pretty fun. Though what stats it would get would be completely up in the air, and you'd need a way to blend in with humanity.

Subjects, I was actually thinking about a whole class based on that, with the theme being insanity and the player constantly battling the verge of insanity to wield their powers without loosing control, and all the talents based on literally crazy and/or illogical abilities, like actually walking into your own shadow, imbuing your weapon with an edge of tiny screaming stars, etc. Anyway, a race of these may be interesting, but again, they could lead literally anywhere. Str + Mag not guaranteed.

Sher'Vol, HUGE lore implications, though not really inconsistent with current lore. Again, how would you blend with society, though? Str + Mag makes sense, and Dex would probably play in there as well.

Redcaps, ..., we barely have goblins in this game, but what are there are part of the Orc faction, so that may have to wait for the Orc campaign.

Troll mages could work as well, and could actually fit with both the lore and possibly into society without TOO much trouble.

Vampires would be awesome, but there have been big debates about what a vampire race should actually look like.

[astreoth]

golems are a pretty good idea however without infusions they'd mostly be treated like an undead class would be with powerful racials to compensate.

eh we do kind of have ghosts in game but don't see how they'd be inclined toward str and mag.

demons and horrors are interesting but thematically really bad idea for the main game lore plays no part in an addon but still.

okay for that dwarf starting zone tannen calls the workers drem fools before the corruption takes root so there may be some dwarf subraces that we don't know about simply because the only dwarves to interact with the outside world are adventurers and the merchant caste.

okay if tome worked that way slime tunnels would be some giant slime titan sitting on the ruins of the sunwall. though I could see a slime race as a byproduct of whatever experimentation it took for zigur to make Oozemancers in the first place or of the Oozemancers themselves.

pretty sure zigur was founded by the escapees of conclave experiments.

redcaps don't really sound that good but does make me think of a fairy based race that DarkGod may actually be hinting at.

okay you know that cat you can get for the fortress who gets there who knows how and has a white star on his chest, in some kind of nordic folklore or something that star is the sign of a cait sith or cat fairy think puss in boots for the general idea anyway it dosn't exactly look like a str/mag race but I don't see how you expected redcaps to go that route so I'm just throwing it out their.

[grayswandir]

Golems sound pretty fun. Maybe something weird like a sand or glass golem? They could be rather fragile and have pretty low life, but the first racial could be a fairly strong healing spell - like they mainly rely on magic to keep themselves moving, and the actual material is fairly weak.

I'm actually really liking a glass golem:
Reform: Active. Fairly strong heal, relies on spellpower, instant.
Glass Body: Passive. 12% Lightning, Fire, Arcane, and Light resist. Gain physical power and save equal to 50% of your magic score.
Shatter: Passive. Whenever you take a hit for at least 10% of your life, spray shards that deal X bleeding damage in radius 1, plus an additional 1 for every 10% past that.
Gather Shards: Passive. Reform now pulls the shards from shatter out of enemies in sight, removing the bleed debuff and doing a beam towards you (hitting themselves and not you) for the remaining bleed damage. Additional healing based on damage done.


Edit: A golem made out of wood or something could probably get away with being able to use infusions.

[astreoth]

okay wood golems bad idea just go treaents instead.

and don't particularly need a special golem type that's delicate going without infusions would let us give them very powerful stats and racials just look at ghoul and skelly http://te4.org/wiki/Ghoul, http://te4.org/wiki/Skeleton and its already known that golems can go rouge heck I'm pretty sure atamathon was rebuilt by rouge golems.

arcane clay: +2 str/mag per level includes eye beam for element with the highest damage mod
magic flows through your being and gives you strength

emergency power: regeneration, negative life and damage boost over x turns at tl5 has a percent chance of auto trigger when taking massive damage
tap your emergency power reserves

blazing power: radius x damage for the element with the highest damage mod as well as + x all damage maintaining this power reduces heal mod by x and increases all cooldowns by x.
let your inner power blaze out.

runic being: increases life regen, heal mod, and reduces rune cooldown at tl5 gives an extra rune slot

edit: put runes instead of infusions fixed it

[Hogulus]

The poltergeist thing was just because they're known for, specifically, tossing heavy furniture around, implying a greater amount of strength / connection to the physical world than most ghosts. That said, an incorporeal race would probably pose a lot of problems (why can it be grappled / constricted? how much damage can it phase through? couldn't it just equip six helmets and four weapons at a time instead of body armor?). Full-on demons might not be great, but a half-corrupted human or elf, either trying to redeem him/herself or fully embrace his/her cursed nature, could work (possibly apostates from the Grand Corruptor's disciples). As for redcaps, they're known for lugging heavy iron pikes around and wearing iron boots (not that it slows them down any). Ooze kings/queens are probably not a good idea for this; came up with it while trying to brainstorm something strong and magical, but it occurs to me that if there's a playable ooze race, it probably shouldn't get a buff to a stat completely irrelevant to oozemancers. I like the troll-mage idea, and there are enough Troll Hedge-Wizards around to confirm its fit with existing lore!

If we want to make a golem capable of using infusions but not as treant-like as a wood golem, how about a sod golem? Sod has been used as a building material, and with the roots holding it together, it probably wouldn't be much more or less durable than a living creature (blades would sink in a lot easier and sever a few roots, but there are a LOT of roots, and no vital organs to hit). Conventional and arcane healing methods would probably both work well on such a golem, given that it's made of living material that can regenerate, but also could be set back into place with magic. That said, an infusion-less glass or other non-natural golem would also be fun, and I'm sure we could come up with appropriate racials to make up for the lack of infusions (like the ones in the post above mine).

[grayswandir]

okay wood golems bad idea just go treaents instead.

But treants would definitely not have any magical ability. Unless you want corrupted treants or something...

[astreoth]

eh troll mages confirms they can learn magic not that their particularly inclined toward it like we want.

and as for corruption yeah theirs a lot of corrupting forces in eyal so being "afflicted" with one of them is pretty common would need to think up a specific type of corruption and why its not a class.

yeah don't know enough about how golems work in eyal to tell if sod is a good idea lorewise either way I'm for the like an undead route where we just give them powerful racials and stats to make up for no infusions.

as for treants not being magical yeah kinda forgot about that its just wood golems don't seem like a good idea since the combo of magic and nature would be confusing and the thematics of the current golems mixed with easily burnable wood seems like a really bad idea and if we just swapped magic out for nature we'd just get treants by another name basically.