Some random class and skill ideas
Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 5:21 pm
Yesterday evening I was writing down everything and anything that came into my head as ideas for skills. Most of these will probably never make it into the game, and quite often they are out of place. The only reason why I am posting these is to inspire thought and share those idea's. So basically, we are brainstorming. Wild ideas are appreciated. This is not the thread for criticism lol.
Hope you find some useful, I put in some effort to re-write them to make them understandable for you, like they are for me in my imagination. Some skills are inspired by other games, like guild wars 1 and 2.
Some skills that add strategy to the combination of skills.
* Defend, defend against all dmg, with cooldown. The idea is to have one skill that absorbs a big punch, and you use it the turn before you get hit as a hard counter. It is not as kill you can spam, so the cooldown should be long. Ideally, it should not recharge out of combat to avoid people from resting between battles.
* Interrupt, prevent next attack of spell from target. The same idea as defend, but this time targeted on a specific monster. Ranged spell.
* Blackout. Melee attack. You and target enemy cannot use any skills or spells for the next 5? turns.
* Rage, next skill does double damage, long cooldown. This is your big hitter. One skill to do double damage. It consumed the same amount of time but it lets you 'copy' another skill.
A mechanical -type of class.
* Summon turret, immobile ranged attacker. Only one turret can be active at a given time, short duration (3 turns?).
* Summon swarm, many weak melee attackers are summoned. They literally swarm the enemy but have low hit points and damage. The absorb attacks by dying. About ~8 should be summoned doing 10 dmg and having ~10 hitpoints (If the skill is targeted at a monster, it can surround every spot next to that enemy).
* Summon fire wisps. Summons 3 wisps that explode in a ball of flames when they die. They are melee attackers with no dmg.
* Smokescreen. Summons 'smoke' creatures that surround a certain area. They are immobile and restrict line of view. They only have 1 hp each so can be removed easily by attacking.
* Mechsuit. for a limited amount of time you have % increase in all resistances but you move % slower.
* Probing eyes, summons many weak scouts that run off in all directions. They give you line of sight but will die easily if they encounter an enemy. (This is the alternative to the vision spell, adding a nice twist by having the summoned ai explore connected area's.
* Trap launcher, fire a trap to a ranged location (see next traps)
* Explosive trap. When a monsters walks on this trap it explodes in a ball of flames, dealing 120 fire damage in a radius of 4.
* Freezing trap. Freezes the enemy for 3 turns, and covering the ground with ice in a radius of 5 slowing all movement by 20% for 10 turns.
* Bear trap. Deals 150 physical damage and immobilize for 5 turns.
All traps could have a shared cooldown, last for a certain duration and only one should be active at any given time. Traps will trigger on everyone even the player.
* Slime launcher. Slows movement by 30% in an area with radius 4 (ranged).
* Ice. You cover the ground with a slippery slope, causing anyone who steps on it to slide in the same direction. The idea is that you lay down ice in a room or area, and when a monster steps on it then it keeps on sliding in that direction, straight into the line of fire of your turret for example. Another way to use it would be by covering an area in ice, and then slide down that path to escape from danger. It cause involuntary movement at high speed (400% speed?).
* Adrenaline. You really speed up. You have double movement and attack speed for 2 to 3 turns, immunity to sleep, fear and all stuns. If the effect wears off you need to recover. For 2 turns you only do 50% damage. (This should be used as an anti-stun for melee characters, with additional tempo added in (attack and kill in two turns, move on to the next enemy while you recover.)
* Clone. You clone yourself. You clone does 50% of your damage and lives for 3 turns.
* Rifle. Fires a volley of several hits. If the first one kills then the next hit the following target and so on.
* Enter the matrix. For a moment you enter the matrix. You can walk trough walls and see everything in a radius of x.
* Quantum shift. Your particles fade in and out of reality. You are really here, or there .. or not? you randomly teleport to another location, you cannot be harmed or deal any damage. If you take any action you teleport again to another location. A maximum of 5 teleports can be used. At any given time you can stop the skill from lasting its full duration, turning you vulnerable again but unable to attack for one turn.
* Riffle punch. You hit the ennemy with the back of your rifle, knocking them back one square and stunning them for one turn. You use the force of the impact to jump back one square.
* Spores. The latest experiments in bio-technology have designed spores that put everyone to sleep in an radius of 5. (ranged, targeted).
* Division by zero. You try to divide by zero, causing a part of the universe to implode on itself. A black hole is created at a certain location, sucking all enemies within radius 6 closer to it every turn. Projectiles (ball spells, bolts, bow attacks,...) cannot escape the gravity field. Enemies trapped in the center of the black whole take 200 crushing damage each turn. The black hole lasts for 5 turns.
* Probing eye. You make a quick scan of your surrounding. Your advanced nano-technology makes is possible to predict the enemies next move, increasing your chance to avoid attacks from all enemies in sight by 80% for 3 turns. Activating this skill does not consume a turn.
* Internal circuitry. All computation skills activate 20% faster.
* Mathemagician. You try to explain the string theory to target intelligent creature (should not work on slimes or zombies), confusing them for x turns and dealing y mental damage.
Another idea is to have mutually exclusive trees. Taking one prohibits the use of another.
Some idea's about resource management (mana, stamina, ...)
* Have one bar fill up over time but only _when monsters are in sight_ to prevent resting.
* Have resource that are interchangeable with reduced benefits (for example, you can transfer 20 stamina in 10 mana, or 20 mana in 10 stamina so they are interchangeable but with reduced benefits ^_^).
* Have two resources that cancel each other out (for example, each time you use a 'good' skill you loose on point of evil.)
* Have one resource regenerate over time while the other degenerated, creating a dilemma ( for example, you slowly regenerate mana over time. You also loose 'power' over time so don't rest to long.)
Some necromancer flavored skills:
* Force feeding. When this skill is active you feed on the lifeforce of creatures in sight. For each creature in sight you gain one force every turn. (force is a resource like stamina). If there are no creatures in sight, then you loose one lifeforce each turn.
* Soul consumption. Each time a creature dies you consume its soul, giving you 1 soul power. (a resource, like stamina or force)
* Life leech. You drain 10 hitpoints each turn for 10 turns from target ennemy. Life drain cannot kill, and the enemy affected by it is slowed by 30%. At level 5 it turns into a ball.
* Summon undead. Use five soul power to summon a whailing ghost ally.
* Doom. You doom target creature for 5 turns, giving it -x to all saving throws, -x resistance to all damage, and -x to damage.
* Life bond. You and target enemy are both healed for 100 damage every turn for 5 turns. If that creature dies while this skill is active, then you loose an amount of hitpoints equal to the max hitpoints of the creature that died.
* Fear. Target ennemy runs away and gets X mental dmg over time.
* Ghost form. Consume all remaining soul power to turn yourself in a ghost, you can move trough walls, are invisible, can see invisible, but cannot attack or be attacked. Lasts one turn for each soul power consumed with a maximum of 10 turns (but still consumes all soul power).
* Wail of pain. Consume 10 soul power and 10 life force. For each hitpoint below your maximum hitpoints, you do 1.5 damage to all enemies in sight in radius x. Ror each enemy damaged this way you gain 20% hp.
* Spirit walk. You and target enemy within 10 squares swap places.
* Remorse. for two turns, all damage you do is converted to healing and you are healed for 300 hp. Consumes 20 life force.
* Voodoo doll. You touch target enemy and use a small part of its life essence to make a voodoo doll, increasing all damage you do against this target by 50% for 5 turns.
Chameleon. Change your shape by activating a form. Each for gives access to different skills.
* Elemental shift Take on the aspect of fire, acid, poison or lightning.
* Good versus evil
* Turn into a healer
* Shape-shift into a defiler
* Shape-shift in a warrior
* Shape-shift in a ranger
Bard
* Play a song. aoe disarm/silence while everyone is dancing (you cannot attack). You get one vibe for each monster dancing up to a maximum of 5 vibes.
* Hold a concert. Charm all monsters in the area for one turn for each vibe spent.
* Mojo. Your attractive forces are so charming they win an enemy over to your side. The effect lasts 10 turns and consumes 10 charm.
* Get into the groove. Use 5 vibes to improve your charming skills (you create one charm).
* Sound bolt. Use your musical instrument to send a wave of vibrating energy, causing internal heating so intense monster recoil in fear and doing 10 burning damage every turn for 5 turns. You become tainted (+1 taint)
* If your taint is > 10 you cannot use any charming attacks.
* Cleanse. Clean your outfit from all the blood, replace that evil grin on your face with a charming smile. (effect -10 taint)
* Butterfly charm. Charm butterflies in the surrounding air, forcing them to attack your enemies. Costs one charm.
Another idea I have been playing with is aftercast delay. You cast the spell then next turn you cannot attack or cast any other spells.
Hope you find some useful, I put in some effort to re-write them to make them understandable for you, like they are for me in my imagination. Some skills are inspired by other games, like guild wars 1 and 2.
Some skills that add strategy to the combination of skills.
* Defend, defend against all dmg, with cooldown. The idea is to have one skill that absorbs a big punch, and you use it the turn before you get hit as a hard counter. It is not as kill you can spam, so the cooldown should be long. Ideally, it should not recharge out of combat to avoid people from resting between battles.
* Interrupt, prevent next attack of spell from target. The same idea as defend, but this time targeted on a specific monster. Ranged spell.
* Blackout. Melee attack. You and target enemy cannot use any skills or spells for the next 5? turns.
* Rage, next skill does double damage, long cooldown. This is your big hitter. One skill to do double damage. It consumed the same amount of time but it lets you 'copy' another skill.
A mechanical -type of class.
* Summon turret, immobile ranged attacker. Only one turret can be active at a given time, short duration (3 turns?).
* Summon swarm, many weak melee attackers are summoned. They literally swarm the enemy but have low hit points and damage. The absorb attacks by dying. About ~8 should be summoned doing 10 dmg and having ~10 hitpoints (If the skill is targeted at a monster, it can surround every spot next to that enemy).
* Summon fire wisps. Summons 3 wisps that explode in a ball of flames when they die. They are melee attackers with no dmg.
* Smokescreen. Summons 'smoke' creatures that surround a certain area. They are immobile and restrict line of view. They only have 1 hp each so can be removed easily by attacking.
* Mechsuit. for a limited amount of time you have % increase in all resistances but you move % slower.
* Probing eyes, summons many weak scouts that run off in all directions. They give you line of sight but will die easily if they encounter an enemy. (This is the alternative to the vision spell, adding a nice twist by having the summoned ai explore connected area's.
* Trap launcher, fire a trap to a ranged location (see next traps)
* Explosive trap. When a monsters walks on this trap it explodes in a ball of flames, dealing 120 fire damage in a radius of 4.
* Freezing trap. Freezes the enemy for 3 turns, and covering the ground with ice in a radius of 5 slowing all movement by 20% for 10 turns.
* Bear trap. Deals 150 physical damage and immobilize for 5 turns.
All traps could have a shared cooldown, last for a certain duration and only one should be active at any given time. Traps will trigger on everyone even the player.
* Slime launcher. Slows movement by 30% in an area with radius 4 (ranged).
* Ice. You cover the ground with a slippery slope, causing anyone who steps on it to slide in the same direction. The idea is that you lay down ice in a room or area, and when a monster steps on it then it keeps on sliding in that direction, straight into the line of fire of your turret for example. Another way to use it would be by covering an area in ice, and then slide down that path to escape from danger. It cause involuntary movement at high speed (400% speed?).
* Adrenaline. You really speed up. You have double movement and attack speed for 2 to 3 turns, immunity to sleep, fear and all stuns. If the effect wears off you need to recover. For 2 turns you only do 50% damage. (This should be used as an anti-stun for melee characters, with additional tempo added in (attack and kill in two turns, move on to the next enemy while you recover.)
* Clone. You clone yourself. You clone does 50% of your damage and lives for 3 turns.
* Rifle. Fires a volley of several hits. If the first one kills then the next hit the following target and so on.
* Enter the matrix. For a moment you enter the matrix. You can walk trough walls and see everything in a radius of x.
* Quantum shift. Your particles fade in and out of reality. You are really here, or there .. or not? you randomly teleport to another location, you cannot be harmed or deal any damage. If you take any action you teleport again to another location. A maximum of 5 teleports can be used. At any given time you can stop the skill from lasting its full duration, turning you vulnerable again but unable to attack for one turn.
* Riffle punch. You hit the ennemy with the back of your rifle, knocking them back one square and stunning them for one turn. You use the force of the impact to jump back one square.
* Spores. The latest experiments in bio-technology have designed spores that put everyone to sleep in an radius of 5. (ranged, targeted).
* Division by zero. You try to divide by zero, causing a part of the universe to implode on itself. A black hole is created at a certain location, sucking all enemies within radius 6 closer to it every turn. Projectiles (ball spells, bolts, bow attacks,...) cannot escape the gravity field. Enemies trapped in the center of the black whole take 200 crushing damage each turn. The black hole lasts for 5 turns.
* Probing eye. You make a quick scan of your surrounding. Your advanced nano-technology makes is possible to predict the enemies next move, increasing your chance to avoid attacks from all enemies in sight by 80% for 3 turns. Activating this skill does not consume a turn.
* Internal circuitry. All computation skills activate 20% faster.
* Mathemagician. You try to explain the string theory to target intelligent creature (should not work on slimes or zombies), confusing them for x turns and dealing y mental damage.
Another idea is to have mutually exclusive trees. Taking one prohibits the use of another.
Some idea's about resource management (mana, stamina, ...)
* Have one bar fill up over time but only _when monsters are in sight_ to prevent resting.
* Have resource that are interchangeable with reduced benefits (for example, you can transfer 20 stamina in 10 mana, or 20 mana in 10 stamina so they are interchangeable but with reduced benefits ^_^).
* Have two resources that cancel each other out (for example, each time you use a 'good' skill you loose on point of evil.)
* Have one resource regenerate over time while the other degenerated, creating a dilemma ( for example, you slowly regenerate mana over time. You also loose 'power' over time so don't rest to long.)
Some necromancer flavored skills:
* Force feeding. When this skill is active you feed on the lifeforce of creatures in sight. For each creature in sight you gain one force every turn. (force is a resource like stamina). If there are no creatures in sight, then you loose one lifeforce each turn.
* Soul consumption. Each time a creature dies you consume its soul, giving you 1 soul power. (a resource, like stamina or force)
* Life leech. You drain 10 hitpoints each turn for 10 turns from target ennemy. Life drain cannot kill, and the enemy affected by it is slowed by 30%. At level 5 it turns into a ball.
* Summon undead. Use five soul power to summon a whailing ghost ally.
* Doom. You doom target creature for 5 turns, giving it -x to all saving throws, -x resistance to all damage, and -x to damage.
* Life bond. You and target enemy are both healed for 100 damage every turn for 5 turns. If that creature dies while this skill is active, then you loose an amount of hitpoints equal to the max hitpoints of the creature that died.
* Fear. Target ennemy runs away and gets X mental dmg over time.
* Ghost form. Consume all remaining soul power to turn yourself in a ghost, you can move trough walls, are invisible, can see invisible, but cannot attack or be attacked. Lasts one turn for each soul power consumed with a maximum of 10 turns (but still consumes all soul power).
* Wail of pain. Consume 10 soul power and 10 life force. For each hitpoint below your maximum hitpoints, you do 1.5 damage to all enemies in sight in radius x. Ror each enemy damaged this way you gain 20% hp.
* Spirit walk. You and target enemy within 10 squares swap places.
* Remorse. for two turns, all damage you do is converted to healing and you are healed for 300 hp. Consumes 20 life force.
* Voodoo doll. You touch target enemy and use a small part of its life essence to make a voodoo doll, increasing all damage you do against this target by 50% for 5 turns.
Chameleon. Change your shape by activating a form. Each for gives access to different skills.
* Elemental shift Take on the aspect of fire, acid, poison or lightning.
* Good versus evil
* Turn into a healer
* Shape-shift into a defiler
* Shape-shift in a warrior
* Shape-shift in a ranger
Bard
* Play a song. aoe disarm/silence while everyone is dancing (you cannot attack). You get one vibe for each monster dancing up to a maximum of 5 vibes.
* Hold a concert. Charm all monsters in the area for one turn for each vibe spent.
* Mojo. Your attractive forces are so charming they win an enemy over to your side. The effect lasts 10 turns and consumes 10 charm.
* Get into the groove. Use 5 vibes to improve your charming skills (you create one charm).
* Sound bolt. Use your musical instrument to send a wave of vibrating energy, causing internal heating so intense monster recoil in fear and doing 10 burning damage every turn for 5 turns. You become tainted (+1 taint)
* If your taint is > 10 you cannot use any charming attacks.
* Cleanse. Clean your outfit from all the blood, replace that evil grin on your face with a charming smile. (effect -10 taint)
* Butterfly charm. Charm butterflies in the surrounding air, forcing them to attack your enemies. Costs one charm.
Another idea I have been playing with is aftercast delay. You cast the spell then next turn you cannot attack or cast any other spells.