Solipsist (Reality bending Psionicist)

[Sirrocco]

Okay. My basic idea of the tree would be something like...

Every point in feedback trees increases your max feedback. There is no other way to increase max feedback. Gaining one point in a sustain and then sustaining that skill should result in an overall drop in feedback capacity. Feedback sustains do not drop when you run out of feedback, but they do cease functioning, and only start functioning again once you start your next turn.

Feedback:Reaction tree(class, unlocked): this represents the overself reacting to damage (which it Does Not Like) and lashing out.

- Feedback: Passive. Creates feedback structure. Feedback currently can only be used to power psi abilities (thus leaving your actual psi to do all of the other stuff you do with it - boost global speed, pretend to be HP, and so forth). Feedback has a fairly significant decay rate built in. More points in this skill give you a better conversion rate on damage-taken-to-feedback-gained. Note that this only covers damage actually taken to HP - the physical pain that comes with physical damage. Having the character wander off into La-La land because he's so busy ignoring the damage that he's taking doesn't actually bother the overself much.

- Blind Wrath: Relatively cheap sustain, no cooldown. The Overself begins lashing out at the world in general. Feedback drain increases, and everything within range 1-5 (dependent on skill) of the player takes a certain amount of mental damage per turn (feedback-dependent). This includes escorts, and the player themselves. On the bright side, damage taken due to this sustain does increase feedback (though probably not enough to keep steady). The sustain doesn't drop when the player runs out of feedback, but the effects cease.

- Third Skill: Focused Wrath: Passive. While Blind Wrath is running, every creature within the Blind Wrath Zone that actually deals damage to the player get a "targeted" effect. At the beginning of your turn, your overself attacks all enemies with that effect, clearing the effect. Each attack deals a significant chunk of physical damage, immobilizes, and reduces mental resist. Each shot costs a certain amount of feedback.

- Fourth skill: Unleashed Wrath: Active. Blind Wrath must be sustained. Burns all remaining feedback in a single burst, dealing feedback-dependent physical and mental damage to all enemies within the blast, knocking all enemies within the blast backwards, and attempting to immobilize them. Player gains 100% damage shield with skill-based duration and feedback-based quantity, but the shield kicks in before the feedback check, so you won't be gaining any feedback from taking damage until after it falls.


Feedback: Communion tree (generic, locked): This represents going further in actually actively exploiting the oversoul's tendencies, and getting in touch with it.

- First Skill: Share Your Pain. Active. Costs Psi. Resonable cooldown (10? 15?). Targets all foes within a certain range (range increases with skill). Deals decent mental damage to each foe. For each foe thus hit, deals a small amount of damage to player (possibly directly to HP) and gives a certain amount of feedback. Why should I have to gain power from my own pain, when I can just share yours?

- Second skill: Strength of the Bond. Sustain. Feedback decay increases, but additional decay is routed to psi. Mindpower increases based on current level of feedback. Increasing level of skill increases rate at which feedback converts to psi and mindpower gain. Has no effect if the user is at full psi. While this sustain is running, psi powers will not be cast directly from feedback unless the user has exhausted their pool of psi. The user taps more fully into the true source of their powers.

- Third skill: Closer Communion. Passive. Reduces overall feedback drain, and gives boost to some defensive stat - mental save or confusion resist or something. Represents the overself becoming more in tune with the conscious self, and at least somewhat willing to stay of its own accord. Also reduces ongoing costs of the various feedback sustains.

- Fourth skill: Mental Inversion. Active. Swaps psi and feedback. The conscious self and the oversoul swap places.

I apologize, in that I'm no good for balancing this stuff, but I hope the ideas are at least somewhat helpful. I'm not particularly wedded to any particular effects (immobilize vs confusion or physical vs lightning or whatever) but I figured the general arc might work. Optimally, I'd see it as one unlocked and two locked trees. I think that the remaining locked class tree should probably be more defensive in nature, but I don't really know what I'd do with it beyond that. Part of the trick with feedback is that it's a constantly decaying resource, and everything you do with it costs more - so I've tried to include ways of accumulating feedback in with the ways of spending it, so that you're acquiring them at about the same rate. Part of the theme of it, really, is that it's constantly being spent, so if you want the points you've spent on it to mean anything, you have to keep finding ways to accumulate it.

My idea, then, would be that someone could dip into the original unlocked tree, and get a block of stuff that helps when you need it most - either making sure that you have the psi-equivalent to keep going, or just damaging the foes that are currently trying to kill you. Once they start unlocking trees, though, they're getting serious about it, and we start building a character around properly exploiting this fragile resource.

[edge2054]

Some neat ideas...

But I got pretty busy with this stuff yesterday.

http://pastebin.com/up95iqbn

Maybe I can snag a couple of the talents above to fill out the discharge tree.

[edge2054]

Took Focused Wrath and ran with it a bit. I think Discharge came out looking very solid.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/1085745/

*edit* It's a nuke heavy tree rather then crowd control or what not. Figure the sub conscience just wants to murder things. Plus I plan to do a slumber and nightmare tree that will be disable heavy as well as distortions which will have a few disables as well.

[Sirrocco]

I might suggest that the slumber and/or nightmare tree actually be limited by levels of feedback - feedback is the subconscious lashing out in pain and rage as it is dragged too far into reality. slumber and nightmare would be the subconscious pulling enemies into *its* world. Either that, or perhaps something funky where the less feedback you have, the better crowd control and debuffs the skills bring, while the more you have, the more damage they deal. In both cases, the subconscious is dragging them into its world, but in high-feedback cases, that world is both closer to actual reality and rather more directly hostile.

[edge2054]

It's a neat thought but I want to keep Feedback self-contained within those two trees. In other words, in spite of the time it took to do the Feedback stuff, it's really just for Feedback and Discharge. I want the rest of the talents to be ignorant of it.

[edge2054]

Starting on Slumber and Nightmares

Slumber

Sleep - Puts targets to sleep for X turns. When it breaks they'll be immune to sleep for awhile (wakefulness).

Sandman - Slept targets enter a deeper sleep (allowing you to inflict X damage before it breaks and reducing the duration of wakefulness when sleep breaks).

Waking Terror - Inflicts X mind damage when sleep breaks. This damage can brain lock.

Dream Walker - Enter the dreams of a sleeping target. If you manage to kill the target you'll reappear in the waking world at the targets old location (combination Fearscape, teleport effect).

Nightmare

Something Nice - It's a surprise

???? - Could use ideas.

??? - Could use ideas.

Something Super nice - Also a surprise.

So I need some ideas for Nightmares. This will be a locked tree and have two talents in it that don't have a lot to do with the sleep mechanics. I'm not sure if the tree should incorporate sleep or not. One thought I have is Nightmare. A single target sleep that deals Mind Damage each turn (this mind damage won't break the sleep). Maybe Waking Terror could be moved into Nightmare but the current effect really works off sleep so I'm thinking it fits better in the Slumber tree since 'Sleep' is an AoE effect.

So I guess what I'm saying is Nightmares don't have to be based on Sleep effects. Some synergy between the trees would be nice but I'm not sure that Nightmare needs a solid sleep effect. Then again maybe it does...

Anyway, I'd appreciate ideas for any Sleep or Nightmare related effects you guys have.

[Sirrocco]

I'm having this idea for sleepwalking. I'm not exactly sure how it would work, but the idea is someone who's asleep, but sleepwalking, and dreaming of terrible nightmares that cause them to lash out at those around them (other than the player). It's essentially a temporary dominate (possibly with some other interesting effects) that takes advantage of the various passives and sustains that you may have that are sleep-related, and breaks under the conditions that would cause sleep to break.

Other than that...
- "When you die in your dreams" - a powerful, moderate-cooldown mind attack that can only target sleeping characters, but does not cause people to waken, and possibly stacks some sort of interesting debuff.
- "Tormented Dreams" - passive or sustain. All enemies that you cause to sleep also get a moderate mind damage DoT that does not break sleep
- "The Nightmare Spreads" - It's stealing from the diseases schtick for the reaver a bit, but it's arguably cool enough to show up twice. When someone dies while asleep, there's an aoe effect on everyone around them that attempts to put them to sleep as well (Dying to Waking Terror does not count).
- "Prison of Dreams": Sustain with a non-trivial upkeep cost. You project an aura of range 3 or 4 or so. Enemies within that aura cannot waken. Possibly say that aura range = skill level, or something like that. Admittedly, there would have to be some way to keep that from being an instakill power in the hands of rares/elites, but....
- "Walking Terror": Every time the damage from Waking Terror kills someone, it either spawns or has the chance to spawn an appropriately creepy short-duration sleep-themed elemental/horror/demon/undead pet (I can't think of one off the top of my head. If none exists, we'd have to make one, but that could be worthwhile as well).

[Sradac]

Night Terror

Inflicts minimal damage to most enemies, however when they are asleep their mind is vulnerable.

Inflicts massive damage to sleeping enemies and causes confuse, as they are convinced the visions you inflict upon them are real.

There is also always a chance of stunning, as even if they are awake there is the possiblity of the weak minded being given minor visions.

[grayswandir]

Not sure where this would fit in, but:

Waking Dream - Either a sustain or passive. While active, whenever you fail to apply the sleep condition you try to apply this condition with a higher power, and perhaps ignores wakefulness. While you have this condition you are treated as being asleep in every way, except you can still act as normal.

[edge2054]

I really really like Waking Dream. I had originally planned on doing a Dreaming Generic tree but ended up ditching it at some point for Trances (which I haven't come up with good ideas for... :/ )

I also like Night Terror (though I think I'm going to steal that name but not use the effect) and Prison of Dreams.

Lots of good dreaming ideas in this thread, debating doing a generic tree after all.

Waking Dream could apply to you and your summons (which would go great with Thought Forms) and I could drop the smart targeting from Sleep (in other words, contagious sleep would be able to spread to you but you'd be able to ignore skipping your turn). Any ideas on additional effects? If it goes in a generic tree it should probably have more benefit to other classes.

Prison of Dreams I only see working if it basically turned Sleep into a Daze. In other words, while Prison of Dreams is active Sleeps don't tick down. But they do break instantly on damage. So you could toss it up to permadaze some stuff basically. As to the Psi drain I put in support for channeled psionic effects. So basically if you had Prison of Dreams going you would have very limited options as far as actions you could take. I think this and Waking Dream would be really easy to code too.

For Night Terror I was thinking some kind of sustained buff at the top of the Nightmare tree, ie. you are the Night Terror. Maybe converting mind damage to darkness damage or something to that effect (one of the Nightmare talents I have written does darkness damage).

Tormented Dreams I also like. I've been wanting some kind of effect like this already but wasn't sure on a name.

So many good ideas Only room for 3 more slumber/nightmare spells though... hmm...

Any thoughts on a generic Dream tree? That would give space for 4 more dream effects but they'd need to be less class specific and be usable by anyone (in theory).

[edge2054]

How's this sound? (note that all effects that put a target to sleep will cause insomnia and thus have diminishing returns)

Dreaming (generic)

Sleep - Low powered targeted ball AoE sleep effect (the power determines how much damage they can take before the duration decreases). (This is basically coded, I'd just need to tweak it a bit).

Dream Walk - Teleport to a sleeping actor. If you're using Lucid Dreamer you may target a tile instead.

Dream Prison (sustain/channeled) - While channeling* this talent targets within in a radius of tl * 2 will remain asleep as long as they're not woken by damage. (prevents the sleeping effect from counting down, but not more powerful sleeps like Nightmare). *channeling is like a more restrictive version of step up, breaks when you move, use an item, or use a talent (though some talents will be exempt from breaking channels)

Lucid Dreamer (sustain) - Increases your saving throws by X and makes you immune to your own sleep effects. You also become immune to Insomnia while this is sustained. (If you have summons this effect will apply to them as well).

Slumber (class)

Slumber - Higher powered single target sleep. At level 5 it becomes contagious and may put targets to Sleep (as per the Sleep talent).

Sleepwalk - Target an actor to put them into a sleep walk, a special form of sleep that allows them to act but reduces their damage and resistances. Each turn there's an X% chance that the sleepwalker will switch targets (friendly or hostile). Targeting this effect on a Lucid Dreamer will inverse the damage and resistance penalties and they'll be immune to the random targeting effect.

Sandman - Increases the power of sleep effects and reduces the duration of Insomnia.

Inception- Enter the dreams of a sleeping target for X turns. Each turn a dream version of them will spawn that deals X% of normal damage and has X% reduced resistances. When you exit the dream walk the sleeper will suffer X% of it's maximum hit points as unresistable damage for each dream target you destroyed. (I know this isn't what this word means but Hollywood has a habit of changing definitions so I like it... calling it Dream blah makes me feel it should go in the dreaming tree. Any suggestions for other names would be appreciated, as long as they don't contain the word Dream).

Nightmare (class/locked)

Nightmare - Puts targets in a cone to sleep. Each turn they'll suffer X mind damage. This mind damage will not break the sleep effect. (Otherwise this behaves like Sleep).

Night Terrors - Inflicts X mind damage on all sleeping targets within LoS. If this damage is enough to kill the target a nightmare will spawn (kinda like curse of nightmares).

Waking Nightmare - As per the horror talent. Inflicts extra damage on sleeping targets. (probably will change the damage type to mind).

Inner Demons - As per the horror talent. Extra chance of demon spawning on sleeping targets. (yes this and waking nightmare where my super secret surprise).


Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms?

[donkatsu]

Could you update the original post with all the trees that are tentatively being included for the Solipsist?

[Sirrocco]

Thoughts for stuff around Lucid Dreamer...
- Turns sleep into a "beneficial" effect (ie, you can cancel it at will)
- has no effect when not asleep. Possibly should be passive?
- There are still some penalties for being asleep. Among other things, your move speed suffers (though less so as you gain levels int he skill. 40/50/60/70/80, say, with 80/85/90/95/100 global speed or some such). Alternately, if you don't like the speed penalties, possibly a max detection radius that increases as you gain skill.
- eliminates time-based countdown for sleep (though it can still be reduced by taking damage)
- Gives various benefits for being asleep, particularly helpful for the sleep trees. Additional mind damage percentage or mental power are obvious choices, but having it give buffs to things that you summon while asleep (you can imagine them into reality so much better) could be pretty cool, and would have some nice synergies with Night Terrors and Inner Demons. Likewise, buffs of various sorts against sleeping enemies would fit well.

Better names for Inception:
Welcome to my Nightmare
Arena of Morpheus

[edge2054]

I had initially planned to do something like that Sirrocco but I didn't like the idea of the player having to spam sleep on themself all the time. Sounded tedious and unfun.

Morpheus something sounds good. Welcome to my nightmare has the same problem Dream World does. It's using the name of another tree for an effect in the slumber tree.

Could you update the original post with all the trees that are tentatively being included for the Solipsist?

Yeah, I'll try to rewrite the OP tonight donkatsu.

[edge2054]

OP updated. Sorry I didn't include specific numbers and left the Lua formatting in the already coded talents (figured it was easier to copy and paste then paraphrase myself).

Additional talent tree ideas are also welcome. I wouldn't mind another class tree and/or locked tree. If enough ideas get rolling for Distortions or Thought Forms maybe those could become a base + locked tree affair.