ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Third (and hopefully last, for a while) in the list of things that really bug me: I regularly lose characters to Dreadmasters simply because I have no idea how to handle them apart from stair-dancing. They have some of the most debilitating abilities in the game, each frightening enough to be the centerpiece of an individual enemy:

-High defense, which makes them almost impossible to hit without some sort of +accuracy artifact or talent.
-Perma-stealth, which makes the former even worse and seems to be much more powerful than any other mob's stealth.
-Summon Dreads, which just compounds the problems with the above.
-Silence and Disperse Magic are obviously designed to shut down Archmages. Two problems with this: alone, each is powerful enough to be a serious issue; the latter is only moderately useful against timed skills, but anyone who uses even a few sustains (which are often integral to a class/playstyle, and not simply bonuses) simply gets torn apart.
-Mind Disruption and Burning Hex are just plain annoying, and make everything worse.
-Phase Door, which makes any sort of focused damage strategy impossible

I don't mind challenge, really. I just don't like that having one or two Dreadmasters on a level changes it from fun to nightmare/you'd-better-exploit-mechanics mode. The banshees/ruin banshees are somewhat problematic in the same regard, but you rarely encounter 2+ simultaneously, nor do they summon more dodgy jerkwads for you to flail helplessly against. Giving some of these effects to a new "Spirit" mob would really help balance Dreadmasters and make ghosts more interesting:

Dreads
-lose permanent stealth, burning hex

Dreadmasters
-lose permanent stealth, silence, burning hex
-retain blur sight, disperse magic and summon
-IMO, Disperse Magic really does need to check against resistances/saves, though DarkGod disagrees. It's not a very powerful effect for the player to use offensively, but when you encounter 2+ mobs with Disperse Magic, and it's guaranteed to hit and remove 3+ effects, it is very, very powerful. It also tends to shut down sustains that exist simply to make certain hybrids feasible (Temporal Warden and Arcane Blade come to mind).

Spirit
-permanent stealth, mind disruption, phase door

Banshee
-lose permanent stealth, mind disruption
-gain burning hex

Ruin Banshee
-lose permanent stealth, mind disruption

I may have forgotten to address some skills. There could certainly be some more new ghost mobs (unsummoned Shadows, Animated Swords/Maces/Axes, etc.), but I wanted to address where the Dreadmaster's skills would go with the Spirit. These changes should also allow ghost mobs to be more widely encountered, and less of a rare-yet-dire circumstance.

I would rather have them to keep all of their current skills, but get an 80% HP nerf. They would still be scary and hard to hit/cast at, but they would no longer be so durable.

+1, ghosts in other hacks can phase and evade like hell but don't also have 1k hp.

Strongly in favor of some kind of nerfing for these, though not necessarily what's in the OP.

It would be cool to have generic stealthed/invis monsters - 'shadowy figure' for rogues, 'ghostly presence' for ghosts. So you don't actually know what it is until you can see it, but you do know that something's there.

eronarn wrote:Strongly in favor of some kind of nerfing for these, though not necessarily what's in the OP.

I would honestly love to see anything be changed. Reduced health would also be nice.

Also, only tangentially-related: Perhaps certain class-essential sustains should be impossible to dispel.

(Although, honestly, if you're never supposed to be without them and can't live without them, why are they even sustains?)

Partly because they won't work correctly as passives, since they need to change in real-time with stats. I wonder if it would be possible to redesign passive skills as hidden, automatic sustains, so these types of issues don't come about.

bricks wrote:Partly because they won't work correctly as passives, since they need to change in real-time with stats. I wonder if it would be possible to redesign passive skills as hidden, automatic sustains, so these types of issues don't come about.

Yes, but it is much, much easier to do it like it is. For one example, check out the halfling +defence skill.

Does Dispel work on magic sustains only, or all of them? if it is all of them, I would nerf it, if not then it's fine IMO.

It removes all effects that qualify as "spells." The problem with this is that classes that do have magical sustains tend to only have magical sustains. Arcane Blade and Shadowblade are the only exceptions I'm aware of.

Dreads and Dreadmasters were already extremely punishing to 'hit' classes with their huge defense and I think invisibility just made it worse. You could probably give them -100% physical resistance to balance them out, but I think it would probably be best just to make them easier to hit.

Dervis wrote:You could probably give them -100% physical resistance to balance them out, but I think it would probably be best just to make them easier to hit.

Actually, I think you just came up with a great thematic idea for Ghosts. Just give them hugely vulnerable to physical attacks [via -phys resist] but still make them as they are.

What about making all sustains simply get a large boost to resisting being dispelled?

Final Master wrote:

Dervis wrote:You could probably give them -100% physical resistance to balance them out, but I think it would probably be best just to make them easier to hit.

Actually, I think you just came up with a great thematic idea for Ghosts. Just give them hugely vulnerable to physical attacks [via -phys resist] but still make them as they are.

When I think of ghosts, I think of a creature that is REALLY easy to hit, but immune to physical damage - as physical objects pass entirely through them. It has no REASON to be quick to dodge what appears to be a physical blow -- it's dead. It's not going to practice dodging a physical object when it can pass through physical objects with ease. Just make them immune to physical damage and give them a low defense score. Invisibility can cover it's dodge chances.

By the time ghost monsters are encountered on a regular basis, even the most mundane of characters should be capable of dealing elemental damage.

Of course, that's how I would approach the issue. Do what you want.

I like the idea of ghosts having low HP and being fairly easy to hit, but having 100% physical resistance. It would give some characters a reason to carry a 'backup weapon' that does high elemental damage (especially if ghosts are vulnerable to fire or light in particular), which seems cool.

Giving them low HP isn't really necessary. Avoid giving them high HP pools, but it doesn't need to be actually low.