Class Idea: Noble

[Elkan]

Noble, gentleman of leisure, rich bugger who knows sod all about survival but has a huge bankroll, And a trusty woods wise manservant/bodyguard/knight errant

The noble himself would have access to only very basic martial skills (but probably a wonderful mithril heirloom sword and no idea which end goes in the orc), but a large amount of capital, talents to provide gold or possibly other resources (from his vast estates) at regular intervals. He uses surplus gold to hire soldiers and buy better equipment for his trusty retainer/bodyguard sort of a cross between an alchemist and summoner. talent trees for increasing the wealth his estates produce and the number of troops it can support (and thuis the size of his personal retinue) could make him an interesting, talent trees for buffing his troops via inspiring speeches terrible threats or outright bribery could add extra utility and give the player some buttons to press whilst waiting for his "plucky lads" to deal with the slavering hordes of undead and puffing on his pipe. Extra carrying capacity via luckless peons could be another item in the offing, and potentially the ability to hire high quality NPC's for one level to help deal with those annoying bosses.

- Gold provided regularly through class mechanics
- Gold used for most class abilities
- Weak core character
- One strong upgradeable equippable pet
- many cannon fodder persiatnt hirelings
- Tough short duration expensive hirelings for key fights.
- buffs minions

[shani]

I liked the idea except:
- Regular gold could be a little to much.
- Expensive hirelings sounds nice for all classes
- Didn't like the fodder hirelings but the pet (almost like the golem) is nice, in a nethack-ish nice way.

[Elkan]

The whole point of the noble is that he can afford whatever takes his fancy, except perhaps artefacts on tap, and it is his (upper) class resource, and is mostly spent on hirelings. I considered the gold system some more and came up with the following.

Lets say the noble gold earns X gold a turn, modified by say, his level and talents, His minions (expendables) require payment of x gold every y turns, or they leave, Payment from the estate is only made once you leave a dungeon or traverse the overworld. as the gold wagons would scarcely head into mount doom, but payment for existing hirelings would be deferred until you left the dungeon.At that point wages are paid, excess gold goes into your account and if you cannot afford the wage bill all the hirelings divvy up the gold you have and leave. your retainer, faithful old companion works for free and will never leave. powerful companions take their payment up front and will stay for one dungeon level. This allows a savvy player to build up a gold reserve on easy dungeons using a minimum force and take a large troop into the really dangerous areas

Toying with the idea of making the retainer a lot more powerful and resilient than the golem, but the game ends on either his death or the nobles. (Good lord, Jeeves, I can't believe it, Can't carry on without you!)

disposable minions could also be limited by number by talents controlling how far the nobles influence spreads, (and thus how easily he can recruit able fighters)

[getter77]

When I first saw this, somehow the first thing that came to mind would be something to do with selling/bartering one's Soul with a Devil/Djinn/Genie of some sort.

If you've played Castlevania 64, perhaps it could be reckoned, in part, such that if you do too much too often....or something....you then have a powerful thing indeed to combat as it collects on the contract in full?

[shani]

I liked the class idea and it's nice and giving him less skill trees could contrast the high gold income.

Lets say the noble gold earns X gold a turn, modified by say, his level and talents, His minions (expendables) require payment of x gold every y turns, or they leave,

That-s an improvement over the first idea, having to balance your gold with the amount of minions and the payment
requirement will require strategic thinking and could spice it up.

Toying with the idea of making the retainer a lot more powerful and resilient than the golem, but the game ends on either his death or the nobles. (Good lord, Jeeves, I can't believe it, Can't carry on without you!)

Dying with your pet (or unable to continue) is also nice. Maybe even a talent tree and partial inventory for the retainer would be nice also.

[Gwai]

I also wouldn't worry toooo much about the power of extra money. It defintely does help and all, but only so much. I played around a lot with extra money in beta6 and got some very very rich characters. You know, the one that finally got to the far east and did stuff there was the one who didn't buy any artifacts at all. He was the one who found every piece of his outfit on the floor or in boss bones.

[edge2054]

I have to agree with Gwai. Extra gold is nice early on but unless a way is worked out for your retainer to make use of it I don't think it'll be that unbalancing. In other words unless the retainer can use potions and scrolls to save his own skin somehow all that extra gold isn't going to keep him alive.

I don't know about the game auto-ending when the retainer dies either. Honestly if that much of the character's power is wrapped up in the retainer anyhow the game might come to an end naturally without the retainer, if you know what I mean .

Also it might be interesting for the Noble to have a chance to attract a new retainer based on how long his last retainer lived and how many talent points he's invested in the retainer talents (maybe a Retainer Loyalty talent that determines his moral and increases the chances that your Retainer would be replaced upon death?)

To illustrate, if you kill your retainer off in the first ten turns of the game your chances of attracting a new one would be next to nothing every turn. On the other hand if your retainer managed to survive a good long time (5000+ turns) you might attract another retainer relatively quickly, say a 1/200 chance every turn with five points in the Retainer Loyalty talent.

[darkgod]

A number of turns is not good it's easy to rest in the wilderness or in bree
A number of enemies slew could work better IMO

[edge2054]

Or based off XP earned so you don't just go to the easiest dungeons to replace your retainer. The gold per turn mechanic would have to work off a similar principle for the same reasons.

Also maybe once you get a new retainer it should spawn in Bree (or the Far East version of Bree) and give you a message 'You have a retainer waiting for you in Bree'. Since it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to show up on level 5 of the maze out of thin air.

[shani]

I Rather saw the retainer as something more similar to the pet in nethack - If he dies you don't get another one, but you can go on with the adventure.
And having him use potions and scrolls should require some AI and inventory for him - it doesn't seem right for him to use the player's potions.

Either way my proposal is that Retainer Loyalty talent can be a part of a Noble skill tree which would contain that talent and:
- Royal Gold - how much gold is acquired per xp gain (I liked the xp/gold equation)
- Royal Entourage - how many cannon fodder the noble can handle
- Royal Heritage - Access to high end equipment from the noble's house (skill points for good eq. in essence)

I can even try to prorgam that class if DG agrees and the class details will be finished.

[edge2054]

How about splitting the two trees?

Royalty
- The gold thing
- The equipment thing
- ??
- ??

Leadership
- Loyalty (could effect hireling moral too, giving them combat bonuses or just keeping them in the fight longer. Say retainers stay in the fight up to 50 + (TL*10)% of their hit points and hirelings stay in up to 25+(TL*10)%, also effects chance of getting a new retainer if you go that route)
- Bodyguard (gives the Noble defensive bonuses and the Retainer hitpoint and damage bonuses as long as they remain with in 1 or 2 tiles of each other. I especially like this because it gives the the player an incentive to put the Noble in harms way rather then letting the minions do all the work).
- Entourage (as Shani suggested)
- Rally (boosts retainers and hirelings stats for so many turns)

[shani]

Sounds nice, but now you have to find two more talents for the royalty. Maybe:
- Royal Blood - His blood is blue, he can heal faster Can change HP regeneration and allow recovering from -X points to life
- Royal Insignia - The higher the rank, the better crits he can do, and a better defense bonus from using his weapon. Should effect only swords/daggers probably.

And as a bonus (Not realy a bonus, but a talent never the less)
- Royal pain in the a**

[Elkan]

A number of turns is not good it's easy to rest in the wilderness or in bree
A number of enemies slew could work better IMO

That is actually the intent, The noble can hang around chilling in wine bars until he has enough funds to raise a new expeditionary force after his disastrously mistimed orders and hopeless appraisal of the situation got his last set of minions slaughtered. So that if you lose a lot of your chaps on the first dungeon level you can't push infinitely down losing and hiring endless men, but have to come back up to the surface if your losses get to heavy, and wait a bit so yo ucan hire a enw force, and hopefully don't lose so many this time before finding something worthwhile down there.

Monster kills has problems, if any monster is fine, you end up mowing around trollshaws getting kills to pay for your mt. doom expedition, boring and rather silly. If only challenging monsters give you gold, then there is the very real risk of becoming unable to progress by having no troops with which to kill the monsters you need troops to slay, and personal fisticuffs with such an abomination is WELL below your station.

The idea is that gold is purely meaningless outside of dungeons, (Disable artefact spawns in shops for nobles, perhaps?) they can buy whatever consumables they desire but have little use for them as they are not in themselves personally very effective. Institute a gold cap for them modified by level and talents, so a level one noble can't macro rest several billion, but instead limit him to being able to support a reasonable number of retainers and hirelings suitable to his talents. and level, you can only transport so much gold away from home with you,. (A noble with a bigger retinue has more peons to carry the pay chests, and he can't support more troops than he can pay)

[edge2054]

Sounds nice, but now you have to find two more talents for the royalty. Maybe:
- Royal Blood - His blood is blue, he can heal faster Can change HP regeneration and allow recovering from -X points to life
- Royal Insignia - The higher the rank, the better crits he can do, and a better defense bonus from using his weapon. Should effect only swords/daggers probably.

And as a bonus (Not realy a bonus, but a talent never the less)
- Royal pain in the a**

Maybe a Royal Command skill that lets you charm? Not sure if I really like that one though.

Royal Presence - An aura that boosts (whatever) for you and your allies with in a short range (maybe 4 tiles on this one). Again discourages the Tome 2 Summoner style of play (which is good IMO).