ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Basically, I was thinking of how to put new and interesting unlocks into the endgame (read: things for me to look forward to) and it occurred to me that Mirkwood (or whatever we wind up calling the spider-infested forest) could do with one for defeating its big boss. The obvious choice was a spider-themed wilder.

This is a wilder built on something of a rogue chassis, intended to dual-wield daggers, heavy on the poison damage, with a bit of acid damage and a fair number of debuffs (particularly immobilize, slow, daze, and stun). Stats would be dex/will, with strength(for extra dagger damage) and cunning(for some sidebar rogue powers) as possible secondaries.

Trees as follows:
- The basic martial training tree that everyone gets, starts out unlocked.
- The basic cunning tree that almost everyone has, starts out unlocked with a decent rate
- One rogue trap-using tree, probably starts out locked
- One or two rogue dagger-fighting trees, at least one of which starts out unlocked
- The standard wilder meditation-and-stuff tree

- Way of the Trapdoor Spider: this is what they get instead of stealth (will)
- Trapdoor hiding: Sustain. Gives you mild invisibility, but makes you completely unnoticeable to everyone not within 5/4/3/2/1 (based on talent level). Can only initiate if not visible to any enemies. Moving, attacking, and being attacked all break the sustain - after the action. The stealth is not quite as good as pure stealth/invisibility powers, but the nondetection range means that it will be checked a lot less often.
- Strike from Hiding: Significant critical boost and moderate attack and damage boost for attacking unaware enemies from the trap. This is often done with Leaping Assault, below, but also works fine with timing, if you can hit the enemy after they become adjacent but before they have a chance to notice you
- All traps are one trap: while in Trapdoor Hiding, swap places with any detected trap, without breaking Trapdoor Hiding.
- All traps are my trap: Active. Detect everything within a certain (moderate) radius of all detected traps.

- Way of the Spinneret (none of these do damage) (will)
- Lay Webs: creates a web trap, that immobilizes anyone that walks over it, with varying levels of power. Grants you 20% immobilization resist per level. Trap is permanent (or perhaps permanent until triggered) but the equilibrium cost is moderate-to-high.
- Throw Webs: Immobilize target foe as a ranged attack. Higher levels become an area effect
- Wall of Web: creates a wall of webs that breaks LOS and can be torn down with a bit of effort. Dispels after a while. Attempting to tear down the web wall can cause enemies to become temporarily immobilized, requiring them to wait until it wears off before continuing.
- Truss foe: Targets an adjacent immobilized or stunned enemy. Stuns enemy for an extended period of time. Long cooldown.

- Way of the Jumping Spider (dex)
- Prodigious Leap: controlled teleport. Higher levels give better control and more range. Indoor dungeons require that the square be within LOS. Outdoor dungeons do not.
- Leaping Assault: fairly standard teleport-within-sight-and-attack power.
- Leap into hiding: passive: you are invisible/hiding for a short time (skill level in turns) after any teleport.
- Jump Away: sustain. Teleport short distances when damaged, costing equilibrium each time. If you fail your equilibrium check, cancels sustain. Sustain also increases melee and ranged defense. Cost and defense bonus increase with talent points.

- Way of the Fang (dex)
- Paralyzing Bite: some function of dagger damage and a short stun.
- Drain prey: Passive. Attacking stunned/dazed/immobilized/slowed enemies restores health and equilibrium. Dagger attacks gain small passive chance to slow enemies (up to 10 or 20% when maxxed).
- Poisonous Bite: adds poison damage and ongoing poison damage to paralyzing bite
- Toxic Bite: adds acid damage and defense debuff to paralyzing bite

This is only a moderately refined state. If anyone thinks it's interesting enough, I'll put some more thought into it and tune it a bit.

At first I thought that since spiders aren't as "iconic" as dragons, and thus a spider themed class wouldn't be as cool as the Wyrmic.
The end-game unlock thing also put me off a bit.

However, reading more carefully, I realized I was wrong - this is a very nice class concept.
Here's my thoughts:

Name
Change it to Arachnophile?
Arachnist sounds a bit 'meh' to me, and too much like Alchemist or even machinist. It's also the opposite of aracnophobe and is what I've seen used in the past to describe a 'spider lover'.

Unlocking
Don't worry, won't derail the thread.
I wanted to mention that DG seems to have planned a spider-centric mode/campaign(check worlds.lua) , so eventually playing that for a while/achieving a significant goal there(I'd say finishing the whole campaign would be excessive tough) could be an 'alternate' way to get this class. But that's for the distant future.
othing bad with having two ways to unlock the same thing.

You could even have something like the sandworm queen. Dhere defeating the spider boss and eating the drop gives the class unlock AND a talent tree on that character, but perhaps that's overdoing it. Sorry, I just love that mechanic.

Stats
Dex and Wil are the right primary stats, but I think Cun should be way more important than Str. Yes, Str should be good for increasing damage, but there should be more powers that get better secondary effects from Cun. I'd associate spidery beings with cunning rather than raw strength.

Way of the Trapdoor Spider
Not a fan of the name, 'Trapdoor Spider' sounds a bit silly to me - even though it IS a real animal. Maybe rename it to 'Lurking Spider', or even just 'Way of the Lurker'?
I do like the idea of a Stealth alternative though.

Trapdoor Hiding is nice - lurk in a dark corner and wait until the foe gets to you.
Strike from Hiding sounds too much like Shadowstrike BUT it's a perfectly valid talent by itself.

The traps abilities are mechanically interesting but I'm not too excited thematically about them.

Way of the Spinneret
A control tree? Sweet

Lay Webs: What IS immobilization resist? Resisting your own webs? You should be immune to that by default.Maybe you mean resisting OTHER spider webs - in which case it's a good bonus.
Also, trap shouldn't be truly permanent.
Permanent until triggered(although perhaps the chance of breaking when triggered shouldn't be 100%) is alright AND I'd also put a (very long)duration/time limit on it.

Not much to say on the other talents. This is a good tree.

Way of the Jumping Spider
Not much to say, again. Although not too original or exciting, it's nice stuff. The exception is Jump Away - I really like that as a talent.

Way of the Fang
Poison is a must for the serious spider-wannabe.

This is another nice tree, but I disagree with the way you ordered the talents.
I'd make the 'deal poison damage' talent the first in the tree, paralyzing/toxic would be add-ons you get later, as would be Drain Prey.

Drain Prey could be(not needed, but something to consider) a sustained or activated power instead of a passive. Would have its efficiency buffed if so.

Also, as you made the webs talent give immobilization resist...maybe poison bite should give some poison resist?
Not all poisons come from spiders obviously, but I think it would be somewhat fitting thematically.
Say 10 + talent level * 5% resist.

Other suggested trees/abilities
When you wrote 'Arachnist', I assume you mostly thought about spiders.

That makes sense considering the unlock and what we have in game.

But what if there were some(even just one or two) exotic trees - you wouldn't start with them - which dealt with scorpions/other arachnids/arthopods?

This would make the class slightly less about spiders and more about 'creeping horrors'.
Not what you wanted perhaps, but I think it's worth considering.

You could put all of these 'different' talents in the same tree. Say...

scorpion: could provide +armor/resistance from a thick shell, or a stinger which gives an extra physical+poison attack(either minor or strong but with a cooldown).

centipede/millipede(not arachnids. yeah, I know): 'Scuttle' could be a sustain/passive which boosts movement speed a bit.

tick: +disease on your bite, and disease resistance. Meh, I know, and probably stretching the concept, as (blood)draining is already handled by Drain prey.

"sense the creeping mind"/"vermin empathy": ESP for all spiders, scorpions, ants, worms, vermin...monsters like that. Or maybe sense for all non-levitating monsters with size_category <=X. Could also give a chance of some monster types not being hostile(other spiders mostly), but that might require some weird mechanics with factions.

There could also be some interesting insect-themed talents(we have lots of ants in game!), but again these are too different from spiders which are the class focus.


Also - did you consider doing a summoning tree? It's not required - and I think DG recently said he didn't like a proposal for a Wyrmic summoning tree, so maybe summons are supposed to be uncommon - but it could be interesting.

If the class does end up relying on allies/summons too, then I've got another talent in mind.
"Kiss of the Black Widow".
Significantly improved drain prey/swallow(with maybe a minor buff based on the target level) that ONLY works on (spider-type?) allies.

I think it's quite a cool idea - would definitely be nice to have a Wilder-type that isn't about drakes. I think perhaps some of the names and abilities should more reflect some of the existing spiders in the game - a spit attack for instance would be very suitable.

Personally think they should have a passive ability that poisons on every hit. Would be great with two daggers...

Nice!

As zonk says there is a planned campaign about player as spiderkin with special classes. I had planned an arachnomancer (a caster) but this one sounds fitting too.

I agree with grey about spitting poison and stuff.

I second the idea to use a different name, but "Arachnophile" doesn't really say that the character has the abilities of a spider, rather that he likes them. How about "Arachnoid", which basically means "similar to a spider/imitating a spider"?

V

Vee wrote:I second the idea to use a different name, but "Arachnophile" doesn't really say that the character has the abilities of a spider, rather that he likes them. How about "Arachnoid", which basically means "similar to a spider/imitating a spider"?

V

Arachnoid is perhaps more descriptive/sounds better than Arachnist but still think it's a bit awkard.
I think Arachnopile is pretty clear - it's the opposite of being an arachnophobe, thus instead of fearing spiders, the character is fascinated by them.
And since that IS the class name - what you'd first know about them - it would be obvious that liking them, the character would try to imitate/draw inspiration from them

darkgod wrote:Nice!

As zonk says there is a planned campaign about player as spiderkin with special classes. I had planned an arachnomancer (a caster) but this one sounds fitting too.

Well, a spiderkin campaign would/could have multiple spidery classes.
I think this could be more a class for people who aren't spiderkin themselves but WANT to become one.
Although you could certainly use it for the spider races too - give various spiderkin significant +masteries to proper talent trees and have them start with them unlocked.

You should also be allowed to play 'non spidery' races with this class.
Think about it - you're a human/elf/dwarf/something that has this fascination with spiderswhich many of your compatriots find...unsettling.
Then you hear about this mysterious continent/land/place that is FULL of spiders - hell, it's the HOMELAND of spiderkin. Maybe you could go there and learn something from them(while trying not to get eaten of course)?

I do know the campaign isn't coming soon, just thought it couldn't hurt to talk a bit about it and it's fairly relevant.

Actually, one of my little edge goals on this one was to have a PC class worth of powers that could be mined to make various spider monsters more interesting (in the same way that dragons grab various wyrmic powers). As such, it seems a fine easy first step for a spiderkin campaign - eminently usable in its own right, and an easy source for interesting powers to steal later.

I do like the "eat the spider, become the spider" concept - it seems nice and thematic for monster-themed wilders. I don't mind the idea of a dual unlock - I'm just looking for unlocks that will take a fair amount of effort.

Zonk, I suppose I agree about strength. It just feels odd to run a class that is almost entirely based on weapon damage that downplays one of its damage stats to that degree. On the other hand, it would be entirely reasonable to build a character like this who pretty much didn't use the cunning trees, and took strength as a tertiary instead. I was initially going to build the Trapdoor Spider tree around cunning rather than will, but I thought that might be giving a bit too much to the tertiary

It's true. Strike from Hiding pretty much is a Shadowstrike clone. I figure the actual benefits would be a bit shuffled around, but it fills the same role.

Immobilization resist would be a chance to resist any powers that immobilize - the webs of other spiders being a clear example but not the only one. Might also help resist against slow? If someone a little closer to the code thinks that this is a bad idea, or has a better idea of how it should work, I'd be happy to modify..

Point taken on Way of the Fang. I'll put the poison first when I restructure. I don't want Drain Prey to be an active power, since it's supposed to be a primary source of in-combat equilibrium - and making it a sustain doesn't actually do all that much because there's never a time when you'd want it off, and equilibrium sustains are shaped a bit oddly.

I don't think I want a summon tree, though I may muck around with a "control of tiny spiders" tree of some sort - no summons, but possibly auras and slow-moving ranged attacks and so forth. It would be initially locked

I do like the idea of an initially locked scorpion tree. I'll have to see what I can come up with for that. I don't think I want to run with insects, though if someone wants to make an insect-themed Wilder, I certainly don't think it would be a bad idea. (unlocked by killing enough insects, perhaps?)

I'll see what I can do about fitting in a spit poison attack. Actually, I've never made it to the spider's lair myself. If anyone wants to chime in with other "nifty spider tricks" that they'd like to see from various spider mobs in the game. I'll see what I can do to include them.

I think the spitting spiders spit slime actually, which slows the player. Can be very annoying :) A slowing poison slime spit with short range and high cooldown would be awesome!

Sirrocco wrote: Zonk, I suppose I agree about strength. It just feels odd to run a class that is almost entirely based on weapon damage that downplays one of its damage stats to that degree. On the other hand, it would be entirely reasonable to build a character like this who pretty much didn't use the cunning trees, and took strength as a tertiary instead. I was initially going to build the Trapdoor Spider tree around cunning rather than will, but I thought that might be giving a bit too much to the tertiary

give them the cunning tree w/ lethality instead of the cunning/dirty fighting tree (i think thats what you meant by 'the cunning tree everyone has'). that way they use cunning for the damage bonus instead of str. i think it makes more sense thematically (not to mention the class already has 1 or maybe 2 stunning attacks, so dirty fighting would be overkill).

just a thought - perhaps paralyzing bite could be changed to a sustain (minus the stun), and the other skills could modify the attributes of the sustained ability....

anyway, very cool idea overall!

Actually, "the cunning tree everyone has" is the generic one that gives you trap detect and so forth. When I get home tonight I'll actually pull out the rogue trees and figure out what to give them in a bit more detail.

ahh duh. that makes more sense.
they would need the dual handed tree with the basic dual handed mastery, definitely. maybe the other tree w/ dual strike could be an unlock (although maybe 2 stun attacks is unwanted, if paralyzing bite is going to be a stun)

Another unlock idea for this one: it unlocks if the defensive poison attack from Torech Ungol [or whatever its new name might be] happens against a monster?