ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This one been on my mind for a while... The psionic is a type of wilder relies on mental powers to defeat its foes. It can directly attack the enemy's mind, or manipulate the environment with telekinetic force. Psionics are very rare, and most children that show mental aptitudes are outcast from society or killed. Psionics are severely distrusted by all of society, even by those that may be tolerant of magic.

Psionics have access to the following schools:

Cunning -> Survival (generic - initially locked)
Telepathy
Mind Control
Mental Combat
Aptitude (generic)
Mind Over Body (generic - initially locked)
Telekinesis
Greater Telekinesis (initially locked)
Telekinetic Combat

Telepathy, Mind Control and Mental Combat all involve direct contact with the minds of other creatures. This carries both boons and risks. The range of mental contact is dependant on the psionic's willpower alone, and cannot be blocked by any obstacle (except perhaps vault walls). An enemy does not need to be seen to be targeted. Mind-based attacks give a mental save to the opponent, modified by the psionic's willpower. Some mental attacks do a new form of damage: mental damage. Mindless enemies are immune to this form of contact - this includes golems, jellies, oozes, molds, etc. Contacting undead, demons and horrors in this way is dangerous, though they are still affected by the attacks. Contact with undead will cause mental damage to the psionic, in proportion to the undead's level. Contact with demons/horrors will cause dazing to the psionic as their minds are so foreign.

Telekinesis and Greater Telekinesis on the other hand give no save to the enemy, and no negative effect to the psionic, as they purely manipulate the environment. However some of their physical effects can be resisted by physical damage resistance etc.

The Psionic schools all scale with Willpower:

Telepathy

1. Sense
Detect all enemies with minds within a radius of 12.
Radius increases with talent level and willpower.

2. Many Eyes
See what every enemy with 6 squares sees.
Radius increases with talent level and willpower.

3. Mind Stalk
Plant yourself deep in the subconcious of an enemy, seeing what they see for 14 turns.
Duration increases with talent level and willpower.

4. Forewarning (sustained)
Read the thoughts of an enemy before they act, within a radius of 3. This gives you a chance based on Dexterity to avoid whatever attack they perform. Note that this may contact creatures behind walls, and is risky to perform in areas with undead or demons.
Radius increases with talent level and willpower.


Mind Control

1. Paralysis
Lock down the muscles of an enemy, stunning them for 4 turns.
Duration of the attack increases with talent level and willpower.

2. Ignore
Enemies in a range of 2 will ignore you completely for 5 turns.
Radius and duration increase with talent level and willpower.

3. Walk Away
Take control of the target's legs and force them to walk away from you for 4 turns.
Duration increases with talent level and willpower.

4. Puppet Master
Force an enemy to act in your defense for 6 turns.
Duration increases with talent level and willpower.


Mental Combat

1. Agony
Inflict 60 mental damage on the target.
Damage increases with talent level and willpower.

2. Sunder Mind
Reduces target's mental and physical resistance by 5% for 4 turns.
Effect and duration are increased by talent level and willpower.

3. Mental Backlash (sustain)
All enemies attacking you in melee will be hit for 15 mental damage.
Damage increases with talent level and willpower.

4. Wave of Suffering
All enemies within 3 squares suffer 50 mental damage a turn for 3 turns. Note that this may contact creatures behind walls, and is risky to perform in areas with undead or demons.
Radius, damage and duration increase with talent level and willpower.


Aptitude
(all passive)

1. Focus
Increases physical, spell and mental saves by 5.
Effect increasese with talent level and willpower.

2. Necrophile
Reduces damage from undead contact by 15% per talent level.

3. One with the Abyss
Resist dazing from demons and horrors by 15% per talent level.

4. Unlock Mind
Increases all stats by 1 per talent level.


Mind Over Body

1. Fast Metabolism
Heal yourself for 5 HP per turn for 20 turns.

2. Immune to Pain (sustain)
Adds 8% physical damage resistance.

3. Purify Flesh
Removes negative statuses.

4. Willed Speed (sustain)
Improve global speed by 8%. The torture of the flesh beneath your iron willpower causes the talent to continually drain Health.


Telekinesis

1. Mental Force
Unleashes a wave of force against enemies in the line of target, dealing 30 physical damage and knocking them back.
Range and damage increase with talent level and willpower.

2. Flying Objects
Fling an object at the target with your mind, dealing physical damage based on the weight of the object and inflicting the target with effects based on the object. At level 3 the talent will also fling objects on the ground around you.
(By effects of the objects, I mean things like healing with potions, extra damage with weapons (as if they were hit by it in melee), possibly phase scrolls taking effect, and so on. Try not to use the Blood of Life on them... ;) )

3. Transport
Uh, exactly the same as Phase Door

4. Telekinetic Storm (sustained)
A telekinetic storm flows around you in a radius of 2, ripping rocks from the ground and dealing 40 physical per turn to any cuaght in the storm.
Range and damage increase with talent level and willpower.


Greater Telekinesis

1. Vacuum
Rip the air from around the target, causing it to choke for 100 physical damage. Also removes burning from the target. Does not work on enemies that do not breath.
Damage increases with talent level and willpower.

2. Ignition
Ignite the oxygen in the air with your will, causing a blustering inferno to arise in a radius of 2 for 1d3 + 1 turns. All caught in the inferno will burn for 20 fire damage per turn.
Range, duration and damage increase with talent level and willpower.

3. Shattering Thought
Crush anything within the target area, destroying walls, doors and traps and causing 150 physical damage to any creatures within. At level 4 it becomes a beam.
Range and damage increase with talent level and willpower.

4. Mental Fortress (sustained)
Create a mental barrier around you, forcing back all enemies in melee range and increasing ranged defense by 20. Only creatures with a strength of 30 can force through the barrier. Walking into enemies with the barrier active will cause 80 physical damage.
Ranged defense, required strength of enemies and damage caused will increase with talent level and willpower. (radius always stays at 1)


Telekinetic Combat
These are telekinetic abilities aimed directly at enemies rather than the environment. Enemies get a physical saving throw against the effects. Does not cause any psychic backlash.

1. Rend Flesh
Use your powers to directly tear chunks of flesh from the enemy for 80 physical damage.

2. Internal Pinch
Focus your mind to squeeze the internal organs of an enemy, causing 60 physical damage, bleeding for 5 turns and dazing.

3. Suspend
Lift an enemy into the air, rendering them unable to act or be attacked for 6 turns. When they are released they fall to the ground, suffering 25 physical damage.

4. Throw
Pick up an enemy and fling them to another space up to 4 squares away. When they land they suffer 20 damage for every square traversed, or triple that if they hit a wall. If they hit an enemy the same amount of damage is done to them.
(Note the first enemy gets a chance of a physical saving throw against this, but the target doesn't. Also, it means we can do what we've always dreamed of doing - juggle molds!)

Grey wrote:This one been on my mind for a while...

How appropriate

I'm going to say while I like psionics in general, I sometimes feel that you have to do them 'right' to make them fit inside a fantasy setting.
Might just be me but it's easy to see them as sci-fi/futuristic.

However this could be fixed with some work - some names could be changed to feel more fantastical and less 'scientific'(telekinesis for example).

As for them being wilders: While it's easy to associate Wilders with nature, animals, plants and even dragons, Psionics takes a bit more work...
But only a bit: it does fit if you assume that this kind of mental powers are simply natural abilities which most people simply don't develop.

If we can put them in the new setting, there's no real reason they HAVE to be outcasts.
With anti-magic perhaps being in the open, psionics could be accepted if slightly distrusted..


As for your talent ideas themselves: I like most, but here's a few thoughts.

Necrophile Err...needs a better name? 'Thought beyond Death'?

Unlock Mind: No problem with this, I actually like the idea of a +1 to all stats talent, including physical ones - unlocking your mind's potential lets you use your body better, too!

Agony: Would be fitting if it also stunned/dazed/confused

Mental Backslash: As for agony

Flying Objects: Lovely idea..now if you could use it to pick up monsters and throw them at OTHER monsters(with a size limitation/physical check to resist)



Also, I'd suggest some more passive/sustained abilities that deal with protecting and healing the self, a bit like aptitude.
Perhaps Biofeedback - your improved control over your physical faculties lets you resist poison, some negative effects, regenerate life and stamina faster...?

Which are class talent trees and which are generic? I came up with a subclass of psionicists a couple months ago, and included most of their trees but I'm still missing some talent trees to share with other psionicist subclasses. It looks to me like we could pool ideas here and have a fairly complete picture of a new class type. Darkgod could also chime in (hint, hint), as I know he has some specific ideas in mind.

Zonk wrote: I'm going to say while I like psionics in general, I sometimes feel that you have to do them 'right' to make them fit inside a fantasy setting.
Might just be me but it's easy to see them as sci-fi/futuristic.

However this could be fixed with some work - some names could be changed to feel more fantastical and less 'scientific'(telekinesis for example).

I agree about naming. I like how ADOM calls them "Mindcrafters", and would like a similar less sci-fi name. Having them as Wilders I think works well with the setting whilst making them feel more natural.

Not sure about how to rename Telekinesis whilst keeping the meaning obvious. The separation of it and direct mental attacks is quite important. Also, the game already has kinda scientific names for things, like Equilibrium, so I think it might fit in well enough.

If we can put them in the new setting, there's no real reason they HAVE to be outcasts.
With anti-magic perhaps being in the open, psionics could be accepted if slightly distrusted..

I find it hard to imagine a society that could ever trust those who can read your darkest secrets... Even the simple ability to tell truth from lies is enough to make one shunned by everyone.

Necrophile Err...needs a better name? 'Thought beyond Death'?

Yeah, that was a kinda jokey name :) Can't think of one much better. 'Grave Control'? :)

Agony: Would be fitting if it also stunned/dazed/confused

Mental Backslash: As for agony

Would make them overpowered though. They already have a stunning attack.

Flying Objects: Lovely idea..now if you could use it to pick up monsters and throw them at OTHER monsters(with a size limitation/physical check to resist)

Hmm, now *that* is a cool idea. New tree:

Telekinetic Combat
These are telekinetic abilities aimed directly at enemies rather than the environment. Enemies get a physical saving throw against the effects. Does not cause any psychic backlash.

1. Rend Flesh
Use your powers to directly tear chunks of flesh from the enemy for 80 physical damage.

2. Internal Pinch
Focus your mind to squeeze the internal organs of an enemy, causing 60 physical damage, bleeding for 5 turns and dazing.

3. Suspend
Lift an enemy into the air, rendering them unable to act or be attacked for 6 turns. When they are released they fall to the ground, suffering 25 physical damage.

4. Throw
Pick up an enemy and fling them to another space up to 4 squares away. When they land they suffer 20 damage for every square traversed, or triple that if they hit a wall. If they hit an enemy the same amount of damage is done to them.
(Note the first enemy gets a chance of a physical saving throw against this, but the target doesn't. Also, it means we can do what we've always dreamed of doing - juggle molds!)

Also, I'd suggest some more passive/sustained abilities that deal with protecting and healing the self, a bit like aptitude.

Hmm, good point:

Mind Over Body

1. Fast Metabolism
Heal yourself for 5 HP per turn for 20 turns.

2. Immune to Pain (sustain)
Adds 8% physical damage resistance.

3. Purify Flesh
Removes negative statuses.

4. Willed Speed (sustain)
Improve global speed by 8%. The torture of the flesh beneath your iron willpower causes the talent to continually drain Health.

Susramanian wrote:Which are class talent trees and which are generic? I came up with a subclass of psionicists a couple months ago, and included most of their trees but I'm still missing some talent trees to share with other psionicist subclasses. It looks to me like we could pool ideas here and have a fairly complete picture of a new class type. Darkgod could also chime in (hint, hint), as I know he has some specific ideas in mind.

Heh, shoulda realised someone would think up a Psionic class before me. Your ideas are very different though, based on shields and weapon usage. Perhaps there could be a whole school of mentalists...

As for generic/class, I guess Survival, Aptitude and Mind Over Body would be the generics, with the rest class.

I think I'll add my two new school ideas into the original post.

- If they're a wilder, you'll need some way to recover equilibrium. Also, wilders tend to be "get in touch with the environment" types (...the environment doesn't like magic and is happy to help you against it. Dragons are part of the environment. If the environment likes you, it can send you friends. Slimes are part of the environment. Etc.) It might be worth considering if you want a new resource for this one. In particular, having equilibrium skills be your sole damage source is a really bad idea.

- I like the idea of making them willpower/cunning (the cunning helps them hit or slide past enemy defenses or whatever) or alternately willpower/magic (if they're running off of magic in some fashion) but it does seem like they ought to have two prime statistics. Pretty much everyone else does.

- To build on the power type idea, it seems like it might make sense to have an entire psionic subsection, with both a psion and a psychic warrior. Have it be its own (Willpower-based) power type - Chi, perhaps. Chi is representative of your inner stores of health and well-being. It refreshes relatively quickly, but, only when your HP are full. If your current HP + current chi is less than your max HP, you may have a fail chance on some of your chi-based powers - though there are sustains/passives that can help you fight through that. Failure does not cost chi, and does not cost turns, but does kick the power into refresh. The psionic warriors would be the classic strength/will (Hi, dwarves!) with a lot of self-buffing, especially in the form of powerful instant-use sustains with low entry costs and moderate-to-high upkeep costs (psionic strength, psionic speed, psionic stability, etc). How powerful do you want to be for this fight? How long do you need to be that powerful? The psions would be more or less as described here - a caster class entirely dependent on its powers. You could also include monks (if they hadn't been created already) as a dex/will melee form of the chi-based character - or perhaps a chi/stamina hybrid.

- Aptitude should be general skills. Telepathy might be as well. Forewarning is a bit odd - it's a targeted sustain. Might be better to have it affecting everyone within a certain radius (and possibly basing it on cunning or dex/cunning rather than pure dex, if you're planning on a cunning secondary) and then possibly having negative effects if demons or undead attack you from within that range.

- You only have one locked class tree and one locked non-class tree. That seems a bit minimal.

- Perhaps psionics might not be so much hated as extremely rare. There'd be one source that you could encounter, by way of some relatively out-of-the-way optional quest. Once you complete the quest, psionics is released into the world - either because you broke the seal on it, or you convinced the one guy who knew about it to start teaching or whatever. If you include the "monks are psionic" concept, then perhaps monks are

Sirrocco wrote:- If they're a wilder, you'll need some way to recover equilibrium. Also, wilders tend to be "get in touch with the environment" types (...the environment doesn't like magic and is happy to help you against it. Dragons are part of the environment. If the environment likes you, it can send you friends. Slimes are part of the environment. Etc.) It might be worth considering if you want a new resource for this one. In particular, having equilibrium skills be your sole damage source is a really bad idea.

I initially figured on making them use Stamina (Willpower synergy) and be their own class type. But I thought having a separate class for them would be a bit weird, and with a bit of imagination they might fit in with Wilders, especially since the Wilder tree is called "Gifts". However I'm not sure how Equilibrium properly works, so perhaps I've judged them wrongly.

- I like the idea of making them willpower/cunning (the cunning helps them hit or slide past enemy defenses or whatever) or alternately willpower/magic (if they're running off of magic in some fashion) but it does seem like they ought to have two prime statistics. Pretty much everyone else does.

I like the idea of them being solely will-based - indeed, as a class they are very focused on their own powers without borrowing from other schools. Perhaps if there was a whole Psionic tree then these would be the base psionics and the variants (psionic fighter, pure mentalist, pure telekinicist) would rely on other stats a bit more.

- You only have one locked class tree and one locked non-class tree. That seems a bit minimal.

Added two more trees :)

I like those ideas.

As for the ressources, I do not see them fit inside wilders.
Willpower/Cunning is what I had in mind for when I add psionics, and let them be their own metaclass.
Using stamina for them looks good, they are draining their own bodies.

Huh. Using stamina purely for them really blurs the lines between them and the martial classes. What mechanic would you slap on them to distinguish them as a type (if any)?

Basically, it seems like psionics ought to have some unifying mechanical interesting thing that makes it specifically different from other ways of playing the game - so that if you happen to poach a power from somewhere else, it is clear that it is a psionic power (or not, as the case may be). There's nothing stopping you from doing this with stamina, mind, but it feels like if you're going to do that, you ought to either have some sort of a Hate-like second resource that influences effectiveness, or you ought to be using the stamina in a fundamentally different way.

Ideas for that include:
- A "psionic focus" sustain power, that turns off your stamina regen but is required to use psionic abilities. Points spent in Psionic Focus increase your regen significantly while nonfocused, or, alternately, provide a passive bonus to the psionic powers you use (either in effectiveness or efficiency)
- Alternate version: psionic powers are usually *very* expensive in stamina, but there's a feat (passive or sustain) that reduces stamina cost cost for psionic powers across the board. If you don't have the feat, they're potentially useful, but quite costly. If you do have the feat, and your willpower is high enough, many of them are free, and the rest are generally affordable. At the same time, psionic characters wouldn't get the stamina regen powers that other characters types get.
- Psionic powers tend to be instant (or nearly so) but very high-cost, and they have ways of regenerating stamina quickly. They aren't limited so much by the action economy as by how long it takes their stamina pools to refill. This would go along with the huge pools that you get out of a willpower-primary character who uses stamina.
- Psionic powers are generally quite weak, but everyone who uses them has a series of sustains that buff all psionic powers or all psionic powers of a certain type, with each sustain generally giving a significant advantage, and a moderate disadvantage. No character is intended to have enough skill points or enough stamina to take all of the sustains, so which ones you take, and which powers you take that they support becomes a fairly significant design choice. Do you want your telekinetic blast power to be an expensive, wide-area, high-damage power, or a cheap, fast but weak default attack with some debuff - or do you want to sink nearly everything you are and have into buffing that power and leave yourself painfully vulnerable to anything that strongly resists its attack type?

For my psionic, I just used energy... in the physics sense. You don't regenerate it, and it doesn't go away. If you want more of it, you have to get it from someplace. You can pull the heat energy out of the air, you can absorb kinetic energy from a melee blow against you, etc. Energy in = energy out.

I personally dislike the huge variety of different resources in TOME, especially when you start racking up extra abilities in escort quests. We don't need yet another resource just for one class, in my opinion, especially when we have an existing resource that scales with the appropriate stat.

If Stamina is used then I guess 'Focus' should be turned into a stamina restoration ability, otherwise the class will be left helpless when it runs out.

The wide variety of resource types is a thing to note, and I'd note that there are a few different subtopics here.

- First, there are a lot of different character types with slightly different fundamental ways that they have to play in order to maximize their resources. The Cursed needs to always be killing in order to be effective, the wilder needs to find a quite place every once in a while in order to not have his spells start failing, and so forth. Personally, i think that this is tremendously cool, and it's one of the parts of Tome 4 that delights me.

- Second, there are a lot of resource types out there, as ways of implementing this "slightly different rulesets for everyone" thing. Personally, I don't have a problem with this. It seems to be a simple and elegant way of implementing the first bullet, which I love. I'm also happy with getting new ways to interact with preexisting resources - Antimagic types have a very different way of interacting with Equilibrium than wilders and summoners do, and true mages and non-true mages have rather different relationships with mana. Gray seems to find this moderately annoying.

- Third, borrowing powers from other classes gives you their resource pools, even when the addition of that resource pool means next to nothing. The chants and the hymns, for example, open up their corresponding resource pools, but the fact that you have that resource pool means nothing. You have the chant/hymn, and can therefore turn it on or off. The fact that you have 0/80 shadow with it off and 0/50 with it on or whatever is nondata. For the alchemist's imbue power, if that's the only mana power that you have, that mana cost is basically nondata. You generally won't be imbuing body armor more than once a level, and if you do, you can chug a few dirt-cheap mana potions for effectively no change in game. The mana cost for the other powers, and/or for characters who otherwise use mana can be somewhat pertinent, but you could honestly remove that mana cost from the game entirely with relatively little effect. It's for the most part a town action. You spend it rarely, and can recover the mana for it cheaply, through rest or cheap potions. Likewise, if you only have one stamina-based power, likely, the stamina cost associated with it will be meaningless - but they clutter up your lefthand bar, and look junky. I personally found this somewhat cool at first - as little bits of insight into classes that i might someday qualify for. Now, I find it mildly irritating, but tolerable. Grey seems to actively dislike it.

I might suggest, then, reducing the number of granted skills that open up resource bars. Reduce the mana cost on infusing to 0 - because there are only a few edge cases that care about it at all (nonmages with other mana-based powers who get the ability by saving an alchemist) and even they don't care much. Possibly put in a stun time instead - it doesn't take mana, but it does require paying attention for a while. Also, don't add resource bars for characters gaining sustained skills that lack upkeep costs. For non-upkeep sustain skills, the resource bars simply do not matter. Those two between them should cut down on the number of unnecessary resource bars significantly

Sirrocco wrote:I personally found this somewhat cool at first - as little bits of insight into classes that i might someday qualify for. Now, I find it mildly irritating, but tolerable. Grey seems to actively dislike it.

I'm just in the mildly irritated camp myself. But I don't like the automatic thought of "new class, must make up new resource!" If it adds something to the game, sure, but if the existing system covers it well enough then stick with that.

I might suggest, then, reducing the number of granted skills that open up resource bars. Reduce the mana cost on infusing to 0 - because there are only a few edge cases that care about it at all (nonmages with other mana-based powers who get the ability by saving an alchemist) and even they don't care much. Possibly put in a stun time instead - it doesn't take mana, but it does require paying attention for a while. Also, don't add resource bars for characters gaining sustained skills that lack upkeep costs. For non-upkeep sustain skills, the resource bars simply do not matter. Those two between them should cut down on the number of unnecessary resource bars significantly

Would make sense to change the Escort rewards like you say. They'd be variants of the true class powers, with magic spells that cost nothing but have incredibly long cool-down times, and sustained effects that are just always on. Then there'd be less of the pointless Stamina/Mana/Negative/Positive/Equilibrium bars going on. Of course I can understand that some might like collecting the whole set :)

You don't want to run it quite that way though - for example, the hymns and chants are such that you might well want to collect more than one even now, but you can only have one on at a time. Spells learned by people who actually have a given resource should function as that spell functions. Perhaps a hybrid, though.
- Having the resource bar for a given resource requires that you have at least one skill that consumes that resource and at least one unlocked tree keyed to that resource
- Powers with no resource bar have increased recharge times (doubled? tripled?), but no cost, as you're doing them through knack, rather than skill. This won't matter at all for the passives. It basically won't matter in either direction for the sustains (the recharge time from the point you turn it off to the point you turn it back on again goes up - who cares?) It will mean that someone can get a random wilder skill without having to worry about the fact that without special skills it'll only recharge on levelup and from walking around the main map. It does mean that some of the mana abilities (identify in particular) will be castable for normal folks (slowly) without having to spring for mana potions, while shadowknives and warrior-mages will have to chug (and pay), but I don't see that as a *deeply* horrible thing. It may be worth tweaking the mana-using spells specifically.

As a side note - I do note one other effect of the profusion of energy types. Specifically, mana potions are only useful for those who use mana. As we add more and more non-mana-using classes (which I sort of see happening around the edges - It looks like we have most of the mana-users we're going to have, and there seem to be a lot of non-mana-users in the works) those (extremely common) little blue potions become pertinent for fewer and fewer people. It might be reasonable to make a specific exception of mana as an energy type that everyone with a skill for gets a bar of even without a tree - though in that case I would again encourage you to consider taking off the energy cost for the alchemist ability (and it's imbue or infuse and I cannot seem to recall which one. The putting gems in your armor one. )

Perhaps mana potions should just be removed from the game?