Chronomancer (Class Idea: with Revisions added)

[darkgod]

Humm

I try to keep the number of damages low.
If you could find a combined name for those ? (yeah inertia can go to physical)

[edge2054]

Temporal damage would work for both. The word just means Time but in RPGs it tends to be all inclusive.

If we go that route though being immortal (either undead or elven for instance) shouldn't outright give a high Temporal Resistance or Immunity. Maybe some resist like 25% or lower but a lot of the effects won't be aging and that'll have to be kept in mind as monsters get added to the game.

That said I like Temporal and the occasional high resist or immunity may be appropriate (Time Hounds from 2.0 would probably be immune or have really high resistance) and in that case the class does still have another talent tree to fall back on for damage which is enough if high resist or immunity isn't common place.

[edge2054]

Starting to wonder about this talent tree...

Evolutionary Manipulation
- Chronomantic Metabolism
- Evolutionary Perfection
- De-Evolution
- Ancestral Form

Not sure it really fits with the mythology.

There's signs that point towards evolution (hobbits and humans having common ancestors) but beyond that I don't know of any other examples.

Ancestral Form I pictured the character becoming large and ape like, gaining a lot of strength and con for a few turns. De-Evolution was a similar principle but with the loss of intelligence and an offensive ability rather then a buff. Chronomantic Metabolism is just a form of regeneration with some tweaks so it can be moved easily enough. Evolutionary Perfection is going to be the STR into SP talent.


Maybe a Metabolic Manipulation tree (this is the Time Warden exclusive tree so should focus on effects that can help melee)?
Evolutionary Perfection becomes Energy Feed or something like that
Chronomantic Metabolism - Unchanged
Invigorate - Increases global Speed
Metabolic Betrayal? - Target takes bleed damage every turn as it's metabolism is pushed beyond it's limits.

Any other ideas on this?

[Taxorgian]

Instead of ancestral form perhaps Half-troll Form? This way you have momentarily changed one of your parents or near ancestors to give you troll-like strength and constitution (with a partially compensating reduction in MAG and/or WIL?) So for 1/2/3/4/5 skill points it's a sustained effect of STR +5/+8/+10/+11/+11 CON +3/+6/+8/+9/+10 WIL -4/-5/-6/-6/-6

[edge2054]

I like that idea.

Genealogy Alteration might be a more open ended name and effect. So if Half-Trolls are ever a playable race you can add more troll blood




On somewhat of a side note, I've avoided sustained effects like the plague. Not that I don't like them. I just don't want to try and figure out what a sustained effect should do when Paradox changes mostly because the engine doesn't seem to be good at checking that kinda stuff. Also if it didn't check constantly I could see some potential abuse issues (boost Paradox up to 500, cast all your sustained effects, get Paradox back down to a safe level). Finally, if they did have sustained effects, they'd have to be a point cost per turn most likely.

Besides all of the above, purely non-sustained effects introduce an element of prepping for fights to the classes, or using Backtrack to prep mid fight if need be, that I really like. A lot of the talents will hopefully expand upon that idea too. Time Stop for instance basically is a 'hey maybe I need this and this' type of effect, though I suspect it'll see a lot of use as a double potion quaffer too.

I guess what I'm saying is that all the classes will have ways to get out of tight spots and sustained effects might detract from the tactical choices the player has to make. So I haven't wracked my brain to much trying to make them fit and have thus far just avoided the issue all together.

Then again, maybe I'm just old school and haven't embraced the idea of sustained effects in Tome

[edge2054]

Just finished writing up one of the more (most?) complicated talent effects.

Paradox Clone
Use Mode: Activated
Paradox:20*(1+(Paradox/100)) + See Below
Range: 15
Cooldown: 100
Travel Speed: Instantaneous
Description: Your future self appears at the targeted tile to help you for 1+(SP+Will*TL/200)*(1+(Paradox/200)) turns. The clone will stay at range if possible and can use any offensive ability you possess. The clone’s hit points and Paradox match yours at the time it’s created and any adjustments to your hit points or Paradox (rather positive or negative) also effect the clone in addition to any damage it may take or Paradox it may spend. When the spell ends, either through the clones death or elapsed time, you’re hit point and Paradox totals change to match the clones and you’re moved to the tile where the clone initially appeared.
(Effect Range: 2.4 - 8 turns)

What do you guys think?

[Taxorgian]

Do you operate your clone or is that an AI?

[edge2054]

Hmm.....

For you to operate it I think it'd have to duplicate your spell list and put a 'clone' tag on the duplicates and then double your number of actions per round but then limit your actions to one cloned action and one normal action each turn somehow.

I'd assumed it'd be AI driven simply because every other summon effect so far has been (the golem is AI driven for the most part, you just get to spend turns to issue the golem commands which creates a decent balance between player and AI control).

[edge2054]

Here you go Tax

Temporal Destabilization
Use Mode: Activated
Paradox: 20*(1+(Paradox/100))
Range: 20
Cooldown: 16
Travel Speed: Instantaneous
Description: This dangerous power attempts to create a controlled Temporal Anomaly on the target with a chance of success of 10+(Will*TL/10)*(1+(Paradox/200)%. If the power works successfully you choose any one of the first 27 anomalies from the Anomaly list to take effect. If the power fails to work as you intend a random Anomaly is instead selected from the first 27 on the Anomaly list.
(Effect Range: 24 - 60% chance of success, the reason it can’t generate the later Anomalies is because these all modify a used ability and in this case the ability just generates an anomaly.)

Like it?

[Taxorgian]

It sounds interesting. I don't know how much of a pain it would be to code the list in, but I like the idea.

[edge2054]

*Performs a bit of thread necromancy*

Thanks to the awesomeness of the maintainer and the new way save games will be handled I've been reworking some of the Chronomancy stuff over the last couple of days.

I've come up with two trees that will make heavy use of this mechanic.

Timetravel (class, all)
- Backtrack
- Temporal Reprieve
- Revision
- Time Skip

Timetravel, Advanced (class, level 10, all)
- Door to the Past
- Tighten Timecord
- See the Threads
- Time Stop

Here's the specific spell effects that will see the most use out of this.

Revision - You time travel back to the moment you first entered the dungeon level or to your last space time marker (see below). All progress you've made is lost and you lose X% of your Hit Points permanently. (This is the ultimate get out of jail free card but it comes with some heavy costs. The hit point reduction is lessened the more talent points you invest. Probably 5 - TL%, so at talent level 5 you don't lose any hit points, but then you've invested 5 talent points here instead of someplace else so that's it's own cost.)

Door to the Past - You create a marker in space time that you can use later for other spell effects (e.g. Tighten Timecord and Revision). Additional talent points will reduce the cooldown. (Should have a pretty long cooldown at first like 1000 turns but a much more reasonable 50 or 100 at TL 5. Otherwise all this does is lets the player choose where his save points are created).

Tighten Timecord - You pull a copy of yourself from the past. The copy replaces you and continues on in your place. Not only is this spell extremely taxing for your past self, causing X% of maximum hit points in temporal damage, it also destroys your present self. (Basically this loads the player from the last save spot created by Door to the Past and replaces the players current data with the old data. I'm thinking the damage should be 60 - (10*TL)% or so.)

See the Threads - This is DGs idea from our chat on IRC the other day. Basically it will create save point A, then you travel along for so many turns and then save point B is created. Save point A is reloaded and you travel along and save point C is created. Then you can choose to load save point A, B, or C. I'm not sure how talent points should effect this. Adding more 'threads' makes the talent more cumbersome. Maybe you can only see X number of turns along each thread? But it would probably have to be long enough to give the game time to save. Also what happens if the player is killed in B or C? Should it just load A? That fits with the concept but might be overpowered. Making it so the talent can only be cast when no creatures are in sight would minimize that imbalance but it would still be there. Thoughts?

Anyway that's what I've got so far.

[darkgod]

Neat, but I believe Revision should always have a cost

[edge2054]

Yeah, we'll have a cost associated with both Revision and See the Threads.

If it goes 6 - (tl)% then someone with 400 hit points would lose 20 per cast at tl 1 and 4 per cast at tl 5.

Neither of these numbers seem like much but it'll add up. If we make the penalty to steep though players will avoid them altogether.

So I think those percentages are probably good. Plus they self scale since it's a percent and will effect the guy with lots of hit points as much as the guy with no hit points.

Here's another spell effect that can benefit from this but it's a Paradox Mage only one and it's appropriately enough, in the Paradox Tree.

Note that this is a rewrite, it was done differently before but I think this effect is a lot cooler.

Paradox Clone - You summon your past self to help you out in the present for X turns. He prefers to fight at range and will prioritize damage talents you have the most talent points invested in. If your clone dies in the present you take temporal damage equal to half the clones maximum hit points. (This will pull data from the last chronomancy save point, either one created on zone in or by Door to the Past).

[darkgod]

Ahah yes

[edge2054]

Alright, I think I've cleaned these trees up considerably. As I go through ability by ability things may still change.

Anyway the Paradox Mage is coming along as more of a controller then a nuker. Should give him a unique playstyle compared to the archmage.

The Infinite Traveler and the Time Warden will play similarly but with the majority of their damage coming from melee combat. The Time Warden will have better nukes then the Infinite Traveler but the Infinite Traveler will have more get out of jail free cards.

The big differences between the full caster and the hybrids will be the Energy Modification tree (the Meta tree for Chronomancy, focusing on time related spell modifications), the Entropy tree (Paradox Mage exclusive nuke tree), the Chronomancy tree (though it is generic, this is the equivalent of the Divination tree), and finally the Paradox tree (which will give Paradox Mages better control over the Paradox resource, some neat exclusive effects, and some Temporal resistance so if they do cause a backfire or something worse it won't spell instant death).

Code: Select all

Chronomancy (generic, pm)
- Deja Vu* (needs some tweaking)
- Prescience* (defense bonuses)
- Foresight
- Premonition

Energy Modification (class, level 10, pm)
- Extension
- Repetition
- Spellbinder
- Matrix (cast two targeted effects at once)

Entropy (class, pm)
- Entropic Bolt (deals X temporal damage and X resource damage, becomes a beam at level 3)
- Energy Decomposition (spell avoidance)
- Dust to Dust (AoE, sunders weapons and armor and deals temporal damage,destroys trees and walls in it’s AoE)
- Entropic Cloud (deals increasing temporal and resource damage over an area of effect)

Gravity (class, pm, tw)
- Graviton Wake (physical damage beam)
- Gravity Spike (AoE reverse knockback)
- Crushing Weight (X damage per turn and lowers global speed by X%)
- Gravity Well (X damage per turn AoE, pins and possible stun)

Inertia (class, all)
- Inertial Strike (knockback, inflicts damage if target can not travel full distance)
- Inertial Shield (Slows projectiles and reduces damage from physical attacks)
- Stop (100% Slow, target regains X% of speed each game turn)
- Inertial Theft (slows target and hastes caster)

Paradox (class, pm)
- Paradox Mastery - Increases Accuracy of Gauge Paradox ability and reduces chances of a backfire or failure occurring
- Twinning Matter
- Paradox Shield - Temporal Resistance
- Paradox Twin (using save files?  if clone is killed you lose X% of your health)

Probability (generic, all)
- Probability Shield (defense bonus, crit reduction)
- Destiny Weaving (passive, increases luck)
- Improved Odds (crit bonus)
- Avoid Fate

Spacetime Distortions (class, pm) (whole tree needs adjustment, could use a better name too, then again maybe this tree can just be dropped)
- Spacetime Destabilization
- Temporal Wake
- Temporal Destabilization
- Temporal Storm

Spacetime Weaving (generic, all)
- Static History
- Wormhole
- Damage Smearing
- Rethread (reduces your paradox by 10-50%; usable in combat)

Temporal Combat (class, tw, it)
- Quantum Feed (Sustained Stamina effect, increases Spellpower)
- Kinetic Folding (Transfers kinetic energy from a weapon strike to a distant target)
- Metabolic Control (Regen + Speed)
- Prescient Strike (Auto-hit, auto-crit)

Timeline Manipulation (class, pm, it)
- Destabilize Lifeline (damage over time)
- Temporal Double
- Borrowed Time
- See the Threads

Timetravel (class, all)
- Backtrack
- Temporal Reprieve
- Time Skip
- Revision

Timetravel, Advanced (class, level 10, it & pm)
- Door to the Past
- Tighten Timecord
- Turn Back the Clock
- Time Stop