ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

My mind was wandering off with the new runes and infusions thing, so I thought up a new class:

The Runesmith
Important stats: Magic and Willpower, (strenght)

Skill trees open at character birth:
Technique: Weapons and shield (x2), Cunning: Survival, Technique: Combat training, Technique: Runebearing, Spell: Fire.

Skill trees not available at birth, but available to spend a category point on: Technique: Runesmithing, Technique: Superiority, Technique: Field control, Cunning: Packing.

These are the new class techniques I came up with. Some nescessary explanation follows below them.

Technique: Runebearing (class)
Main stat: Willpower
- Runebearing: each level in this skill allows the user to equip two more runic items (starting with 1 item at level 1).
The class gets 1 point in this skill at birth.
- Runic offense: Each level in this skill allows the user to wield runic weapons of better quality material (1=steel, 5 =best material available)
- Runic Defense: Each level in this skill allows the user to wear runic armor of better quality material
- Attunement: Each level in this skill reduces the cooldown penalty applied to runic items (level 1= 8 x base, level 2= 6 x base, level 3= 4 x base, level 4 = 2 x base, level 5 = base). At level 5, you do not suffer any more permanent mana damage when empowering an item.

Technique: Runesmithing (class)
Main stat: Magic
- Empower: allows the user to craft a rune into an item. At level 1, can empower weapons. At level 2, can empower shields, at level 3, can empower helmets, gauntlets, and boots, at level 4, can empower armor, at level 5, can empower tools and jewelry.
- Metallurgy: Allows the user to empower higher quality metals. Level 1 = steel (that's the one coming after iron, right?), level 5 = best quality metal. At level 3, allows the user to empower ego items, at level 5, allows the user to empower double-ego items.
- Reforge weapon: With this skill, you are allowed to (have the RNG) reroll the damage and AP values for a weapon. It also has a small chance to brand a weapon with one of the elements. Chance to brand increases with skill level. At level 5, chance of the weapon gaining a 2nd, random ego apart from the branding.
- Reforge armor: With this skill, you can improve a piece of armor or a shield, by adding a random resist to it. Chance improves with level. At level 5, chance to add an immunity, instead of a resist to the armor/shield.

Okay, I will try to explain, how I imagine this class should work.
What exactly are runic items?
- unsurprisingly, these are items that have been empowered with a rune/infusion.
Only items made out of metal can be empowered. The exception to this are rings and amulets, which can be empowered regardless of material.
- runic items can be randomly generated in the dungeons (rare), but only a character with the runebearing skill can wear them.
- when your character wields a runic item, it gains the use of the ability, just as it would have when he had applied the rune/infusion to it's body. However, the cooldown time for the ability is 10 times longer than the cooldown time for a tattood rune/infusion. This cooldown penalty can be reduced, and ultimately negated by the Attunement skill.

How does this runesmithing thing actually work?
- Once you have the required skills, your character can either reforge items, or empower items.
-Reforging an item drains all your mana and fatigue. Be advised to only forge in a safe spot.
-Empowerment is a *very* intensive process, in which the smith bonds some of his own magical power with the item he empowers, to bind the rune to it. Therefore, each time the runesmith empowers an item, apart from being drained of all mana and fatigue, he loses 3 mana points, permanently. This is ultimately negated by getting Attunement skill to level 5.
- With the right amount of Metallurgy skill, ego, and double-ego items can be empowered. Note however, that this does not apply to reforging items. Ego, and double ego items can never be reforged. That would make reforge-scumming for the right combination of ego's/resists too easy.
- There is no way to extract a rune from an empowered item. The process is permanent.

As you might have noticed, the character starts out without the ability to craft any runic items, but with the ability to wield one (through the one point in the runebearing skill at birth). In my opinion, this class should start out with one runic item at birth, possibly from a predefined, restricted list of runes/infusions (to prevent the luck factor creating too strong a character at birth). Runic items can be randomly generated in the dungeons, but only a character with the runebearing skill can wear them.

Also, you might have noticed that the Metallurgy, Runic offense, and Runic Defense skills start at 'steel' at level 1 (or whatever metal comes after iron). I thought it would be too harsh, to make the player wait with equipping his birth item, or with empowering his first item, after getting his first point in the Empower skill, because he is not allowed to work iron yet
I am not entirely sure how many types of metal there are in the game at this moment. 6 would be sweet, that would make things easy here.
At first glance, the Runebearing skill might seem overpowered, granting the user the ability to wear 9 runic items at level 5.
However, to be able to create something other than weapons, you need points in Empower as well.

Oh, I thought a Runesmith would not be complete without access to the fire school of magic, hence Spell: Fire at birth.

I think this could be a very fun class to play.

EDIT: the runebearing skill could be offered on a new (escort?) quest, so non-runesmith characters have a choice of being able to wear a runic item, should they be lucky enough to find a good one.

the specific mechanics probably need some tweaking, but the general idea is awesome.
was just thinking how there needed to be more classes that utilized shields, too...

Allowing imbued items to be empowered as well would be a nice addition. This should have metallurgy level 5 as a prerequisite, just like double-ego items.

On a side note, I must admit basing this class not only on it's appearance in previous Tome versions, but also on having played a runesmith in the tabletop game of Warhammer 3d edition.

thinking this over, it seems like a LOT of skillpoints invested in a fashion that doesn't really encourage much growth. the end result seems both simultaneously unbalancing (tons of additional rune slots) and underpowered (you invest a lot of points just to utilize the equipment that a normal melee class would be wielding)
a few general ideas, not very fleshed out:
grant them access to the stone alchemy tree (the class should ultimately play as a fighter/alchemist hybrid). runesmithing instead only works on weapons.
the runebearing tree itself should have a variety of combat abilities related to wielding a runic weapon. some general ideas could be: a medium ranged physical damage attack ('runic fire' or 'runic shot' or something), an offensive buff ('runic aura' temporarily adds arcane damage to attacks), a debuff attack ('runic smite' decreases physical resistance and resistance to arcane damage), a defensive buff of some sort (maybe 'runic glow' granting physical and arcane damage resistance), etc....
the runesmithing tree could focus on forging and re-forging runic weapons, and enhancing imbued armors. powerful enhancements could be at a permanent HP or mana cost.

taken one step further, the class could start out with a unique weapon - a runeblade. this weapon could be enhanced and re-forged as the character progresses, utilizing materials from other weapons and artifacts. maybe it is sentient initially.

There is also the RuneMaster

http://forums.te4.org//viewtopic.php?f=39&t=22194&hilit=artist

This class encourages people to wait until then can max out a fourth-tier skill (ie, level 16) before they make use of their class-defining feature. That's unfortunate.

Adding items to the dungeon that can only be used by one class is poor. Note that alchemist gems, for example, never drop. If you want to add runic items or whatever as world-droppable, then everyone should be able to use one (and only one).