ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This is very much first draft, work in progress stuff. All numbers are just placeholders really, I have very little notion of what is or isn't "balanced" Suggestions and comments are welcomed.

The Anorthil stand between the light and the shadows, The Sun Paladins boldly carry the light into the dark places. These are well known: less often mentioned are the avengers who move unseen under moonlight and through shadows to administer Justice. And as justice is blind so to are the Avengers, who attune their senses to negative energy and fight blindfolded and deafened to avoid all distraction to their purpose. To bring about final justice, retribution and vengeance.

Primary attributes are Dexterity and Willpower. The idea is for a bow user that lacks an archers mobility and instead relies upon stealth and traps to manipulate its enviroment and hobble its foes.

I'd like for thenm to use stamina and negative energy, Although i'm a little shaky on how to make the resource system work out with regards to negative energy, But hey, there is an archer in the moon right? Just ask Chang'E


Basic Talent setup (needs fleshing out) :

Technique/archery-bow (Known at birth)

Technique/archery-training (Unknown at Birth, usable form level 1)

technique/combat-techniques-passive (Unknown at Birth, usable form level 1)

cunning/stealth (Known at birth)

Celestial/Archery (Known at birth : See below)

Celestial/Litanies (Known at birth : See below)

Celestial/Sigils (Unknown at Birth, usable from level 10)

Alternatively, Rather than Litanies Hyms might be taken directly from anorthils, Rogue Traps may be used instead of Sigils.

Starting Talents Blind archery 1 Stealth 1 Bow mastery 1 Meditation 1 (see below)

Meditation = Every second turn you remain in stealth, with moving or acting your gain one negative energy. Additionally you have achieved a zen like focus when shooting, and gain 2 negative energy every time you fire your bow (basic "shoot" only, not talents)
The idea being to wait patiently, lay out traps, and then take out a target using gathered negative energy. Stamina can be recouped by kiting, but ideally you only have the negative energy you engage with. this is very rough so needs refining.
(this starts trained with the class and is one point only like an alchemists refit golem etc)

Celestial / Archery

Blind Archery (Passive)
4 /6 /8 /10 /12 telepathy (initial 1 pt)
2 /3 /4 /5 /6 Automatic detection of stealthed and invisible actors
1 /2 /2 /3 /3 sight range for purposes of seeing walls and objects
Disables lite (Slot is reatined for stat bonuses, but light radius and infravision are permanently ignored

Dance under moonlight (Active)
For next the next 3/3/4/4/5 turns each time you move you also fire quick, light shots your bow at a random target within (50% bow range rounded up) doing 60/72/84/96/108% damage
Additionnaly yur willpower is now used to determine the power of your Stealth, rather than your cunning.


Empowered Archery (sustain)
You harness the power of shadow to enhance the flights of your arrows, increasing their maximum range by 1, travel speed by 15/30/45/60/75% and adding 5/10/15/20/25 shadow damage

Heartshot
You begin to carefully aim for the targets vitals, once you begin it takes two turns of uninterupted concetraion to make the shot, moving, using an ability or taking damage will break your concenctration. Ex: turn 1 cast. turn 2. wait. turn 3. wait Fires on end of turn. turn 4 next action.
Does 200/250/300/350/400% damage with a 15/30/45/60/75% chance to kill the target if the shot takes it below 20% health


Celestial / Litanies

Only one Litany may be active at a given time.
(Like chants they may be switched instantly but have moderate cooldowns)

Litany against fear (Sustained)
fear/confusion/daze resist 15/30/45/60/75%
"I will not fear, fear is the mind-killer...."

Litany of focus (Sustained)
3/6/9/12/15% Critical strike chance
Attack rating based on willpower

Litancy against pain (Sustained)
3/5/7/9/12% resist all

Litany of Silence (Sustained)
Focuses absolutely on silence and the suppression of thought, becoming one with the night.
Increases stealth rating by 4/8/12/16/20 (inceases with willpower)
Increases darkness damager by 2/4/6/8/10%


Celestial / Sigils
(Much like glyphs, but darkness damage and negative rather than positive energy costs)

Sigil of terror
You engrave a sigil of darkness into the floor. All targets passing by will afflicted by fear for X turns (same forumla as glyphs) the Sigil lasts for X turns) (Fear duration and power increases with willpower)

Sigil of freezing shadows
You engrave a sigil of darkness into the floor. All targets passing by will take moderate darkness damage and be frozen for X turns (Darkness damage and freeze duration increases with willpower)


Sigil of wasting
You engrave a sigil of darkness into the floor. All targets passing by will take light darkness damage and have all resistances reduced by 6/12/18/24/30% low darkness damage (Damage increased with willpower)

Sigil of entrapment
Inflicts moderate darkness damage, additionally causes all other sigils within radius 1/2/2/3/3 to be triggered against the target at 30-75% effect and consuming the sigil of entrapment. (Darkness damage and effectivess of secondary sigils scales with willpower)

There's a very similar class to this in the works (just waiting for an engine aura function to get written so I can code it).

While I personally prefer the bow approach slings fit better with crafty characters (since they use cunning). Stealth and slings is more of a natural fit then bow and stealth.

Here's the link...


http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=27616

Feel free to add ideas though to either thread. I'll probably steal some of them

Hihi if two people independently come up with an idea so close to each others at separate times its a pretty good indication something has to be done about it *grins*

haha.. yeah, a lot of overlap. I was planning for some passive negative energy regen using the motes too (but only while stealthed or in a darkened tile).

A lot of the stuff I want to do plays off the lighting conditions so we need a good way to track that stuff through the engine (I had started to write some in game functions for it but ultimately auras will be a better way to go about it).

I'll start bugging DG for an engine function once he gets the SVN so it'll compile under windows again. Maybe by b35 I'll be able to have this class playable.

I was playing around with some ideas for this class about creating areas of darkness or blinding enemies, my class idea revolves around the avenger avoiding light entirely (Deliberating not taking the archery utility tree for flare for the same thematic reasons yours picked it up)

Yeah, my thought on flare was more from a non-game perspective. If they're meant to be scouts they should be able to shoot a flare to call in the Sun Paladins and Anorithil. The rest of the tree though feels fitting.

I like your bow sniper approach and honestly it's what I would prefer to do. But as I said cunning is just more of a natural fit for a stealth based character which makes slings more of a natural fit (I saw your willpower conversion talent which is an interesting way around that). On the other hand we don't have a sling focused character class atm either so making it a slinger would give players more options in that regard.

Maybe I'll sneak in a talent that gives a substantial bonus when using a sling in one hand and keeping the off-hand empty (to encourage the class to not use a shield).

Wait... you can use shields with slings?....

*picks up jaw*

N.n..no wonder my halfling slingers never lasted long...