Fateful Aura redesign

[benli]

As I mentioned in another post, I think Fateful Aura needs a redesign to make it more fun and useful. These are the problems I see with it:

1) It's too random.
2) It is not thematically interesting enough.
3) It replaces talents but it doesn't feel as useful and directed as most talents. It should be worth investing and help in developing a character.

To that end, I've been thinking about changing it behave more like a set of sustained abilities or effects. Each item gets a specific curse like "Curse of Corpses". Equiping it turns on the "Curse of Corpses" effect and multiple items can stack to level up that effect. Every curse comes with a penalty and up to 4 levels of effects that are unlocked by your talents. There are only about 9 or 10 cursable items that you can equip which limits the number of curses and effect levels that you can have.

Here are how the talents might change:
Cursed Touch
30% -> 90% chance of cursing an item
0% -> 25% chance of an Unformed Curse that lets you pick which curse you want
Dark Gift
Lvl 1: Unlock level 1 effects.
Lvl 2: Unlock level 2 effects.
Lvl 3: Unlock level 3 effects.
Lvl 4: Unlock level 4 effects.
Lvl 5: ???
Curse Wielder: Bonuses based on the cursed item type, for example:
Cloaks: +TL defense
Helmets: +1 level to the helmets's curse effect
Weapons: +TL% critical power
etc.


Here is a list of the curse effects that I've come up with so far.

Curse of Corpses
Penalty: Fear of Death: The undead do X% more damage to you.
Level 1: Power over death: You do X% more damage to the undead.
Level 2: +STR, +MAG, -1 LCK/Item
Level 3: Corpselight: Each death you cause leaves behind a trace of itself: an eerie light of radius 4.
Level 4: Reprieve from Death: Humanoids you slay will sometimes rise to fight beside you as ghouls for 6 turns.
Curse of Madness
Penalty: -mind resistance, -confusion resistance
Level 1: +Pin resistance, dual wielding dam bonus, spell criticals
Level 2: +DEX, -1 LCK/Item
Level 3: Chaos: When you are confused, any target you damage will also become confused.
Level 4: Mania: Any time you take more that 10% damage in a single turn, the remaining cooldown of one of your talents is reduced by 1.
Curse of Shrouds
Penalty: light resistance penalty
Level 1: darkness/blindness resistance
Level 2: WIL, -1 LCK/Item
Level 3: Blur: Adds defense after every movement
Level 4: Shroud: Each death adds a shield
Curse of Plagues
Penalty: NATURE resistance penalty
Level 1: Blight/Disease resistance
Level 2: CON, -1 LCK/Item
Level 3: Contempt: weak creatures will die when they attack you
Level 4: Plague Bearer: taking more than 15% damage from a source can disease a target
Curse of Misfortune
Penalty: -50% gold found
Level 1: ???
Level 2: CUN, -1 LCK/Item
Level 3: Devious Mind: 30% chance to avoid traps.
Level 4: Unfortunate End: Inflicting near fatal damage has a chance to kill, doing 0 to 100% more damage if death results.

These curses have a much more consistent theme. I wouldn't mind making them more useful in creating interesting builds since this is an optional talent tree the anyone can get. Curse of Madness for instance could be helpful for non-dex focued dual wielder.

[lukep]

One issue I have with Fateful Aura is that I don't think it is currently a good investment for the late game, because equipment is replaced by artifacts that cannot be cursed. Artifacts and randarts make up a majority of the endgame equipment of the vault winners (64% of winner equipment from betas 31-34), with a minimum of 38% (5/13), and a max of 92% (11/12). All talents should have use throughout the game, and I don't know what should be done about artifacts.

[Grey]

I would recommend against the idea of choosing which curse you want - it results in a lot of painful micromanagement. Also a bugger to code, I imagine.

I think the light and nature resist penalties are too weak in comparison wit the others - enemies rarely use these. Perhaps they should be random elemental and status resist penalties?

[Silvermoon]

As I mentioned in another post, I think Fateful Aura needs a redesign to make it more fun and useful. These are the problems I see with it:

1) It's too random.
2) It is not thematically interesting enough.
3) It replaces talents but it doesn't feel as useful and directed as most talents. It should be worth investing and help in developing a character.

I disagree heavily with points 1 and 2. 3 is valid because in the late game, as stated by lukep, there is no effect on your artifact finds, rendering the entire tree moot.

The randomness inherently increases how interesting item drops are. The reality is that ToME has too many egos for most item types, and those egos aren't particularly defining nor interesting in most cases. Curses can turn any piece of equipment into something more interesting, and potentially usable.

My issue is that the 'cursed' class as a whole should probably be redone -- perhaps as a racial modifier or a body type selection (similar to fruit bat mode in Tome 2) - as there's no real reason Cursed out to be a 'class' so much as a state of being.

[eronarn]

I'd really just rather see it dropped as a tree. Save it for a 'tinkerer' class, where they can add a bonus to an item but maybe a penalty too.

[Aquillion]

The artifact issue is the real bother for me. It puts the tree in a really unfortunate position:

For most of the game, you have to invest points in it (at least a few) to avoid having it giving you pure disadvantages.

But then, by the endgame, it no longer helps you, since you're probably using mostly artifacts. Those points are wasted.

I see no solution. Allowing it to affect artifacts is impractical, since that would place too much in one roll of the dice, something most players are unlikely to really find fun (regular items it's not so bad to sometimes get bad results on, since you can just find other things later. But you only get a small number of artifacts.)

I would totally change the tree into something different, unrelated to equipment. Maybe random debuffs that also grant you powers based on your investment in the tree, or some such thing.

[bricks]

I wish I didn't agree with what has been said, but I do. :/ I really like the idea of introducing cursed equipment to ToME, since it's such a fun throwback to other roguelikes. Making it a whole crafting... thing sounds really tedious for the player.

Perhaps cursed equipment could occur naturally, as a third ego type that gives significant bonuses and penalties. (Think about the Resource Leech egos, for example.) Non-Afflicted classes would find this equipment hard to use, but not impossible. However, the Afflicted (or any with the Fateful Aura tree) would have a passive skill that would increase the positive effects of curses on equipment, making them more appealing for those classes. To address the artifact issue, existing artifacts designed for Cursed/Doomed and new artifacts could come with curses built-in, making them very good pieces of equipment for those classes. Randarts could come with curses, too, of course.

The rest of the tree could be worked into a broader skill set that works on the idea of curses. Perhaps an active skill that gives temporary life regen based on the number of cursed items equipped (which subverts the -50% healing penalty, of course), or an activated "Cursed Touch" that debuffs an enemy by temporarily cursing a piece of equipment they are wearing.

[Grey]

I would totally change the tree into something different, unrelated to equipment. Maybe random debuffs that also grant you powers based on your investment in the tree, or some such thing.

I like this idea. It fits in better with the whole tortured soul idea of the class. Let the player feel truly cursed at times.

[Dervis]

Perhaps cursed equipment could occur naturally, as a third ego type that gives significant bonuses and penalties.

Probably just the penalties... and Fateful Aura would allow you to get the good stuff out of curses. The first talent of the tree would have to be redone though.

Cursed Touch
Passive: Increases the penalties and bonuses on Cursed items by 30/40/50/60/70%.
Activate: 5.0 hate, cd 150. Curse any non-cursed wearable equipment (except ammo). This can be used on artifacts and randarts.

[overgoat]

I would also like to see the Fateful Aura move away from equipment curses as they can't affect artifacts. My idea is to have each talent in the tree provide a passive that would provide a negative and positive effects. Each additional rank would shift the ratio of these effect to make them more positive.

Some ideas:

Hemophilia: Your are much more susceptible to bleeding attacks, but each of your attacks now cause bleeding damage. At rank one -50% bleeding resistance and +10% weapon bleeding damage over 5 turns. At rank five: -25% bleeding resistance and +50% weapon bleeding damage over five turns.

Concussed: You are more susceptible to stunning attacks, but each of your attacks now has a chance to stun. At rank one -40% stun resistance and each attack has a 5% chance to stun for two rounds. At rank five -20% stun resistance and each attack has a 15% chance to stun for three rounds.

Infectious: You are more susceptible to diseases and have a chance to spread a random disease to nearby enemies. At rank one -50% disease resistance and 10% chance to infect enemies in a radius of two with a disease for 10 rounds. At rank five -25% disease resistance and a 25% chance to infect enemies in a radius of three with a disease for 10 rounds. Disease damage based on weapon damage.

Poisonous: You are more susceptible to poisons and have a chance to spread a random poison to enemies who hit you. At rank one -50% poison resistance and 20% chance to poison enemies that hit you for 5 rounds. At rank five -25% poison resistance and a 50% chance to poison enemies that hit you for 5 rounds. Poison damage based on weapon damage.

Cursed Body: Your body has become warped and twisted this makes you heal more slowly but also become much tougher. At rank one -50% healing mod and +3 Con and +3% resist all. At rank five -25% healing mod and +15 Con and +15% resist all.

[Grey]

Some nice ideas, though maybe the numbers should be tweaked for balance. Would give a more debilitated feel to the class.

[Elkan]

I'd prefer to see some really heavy-duty curses and dark gifts on randarts, things like 30% resistance penalties balanced against things like talent tree bonuses, cooldown reductions high probability life leech (Or Corrupted blood damage in decent numbers to provide a good healing input) or in the case of weapons, a stack of penalties but the ability to negate those penalties and then turn them into bonuses by taking the life of a large number of foes (sentient soulstealing weapon)

[edge2054]

I wish I didn't agree with what has been said, but I do. :/ I really like the idea of introducing cursed equipment to ToME, since it's such a fun throwback to other roguelikes. Making it a whole crafting... thing sounds really tedious for the player.

Perhaps cursed equipment could occur naturally, as a third ego type that gives significant bonuses and penalties. (Think about the Resource Leech egos, for example.) Non-Afflicted classes would find this equipment hard to use, but not impossible. However, the Afflicted (or any with the Fateful Aura tree) would have a passive skill that would increase the positive effects of curses on equipment, making them more appealing for those classes. To address the artifact issue, existing artifacts designed for Cursed/Doomed and new artifacts could come with curses built-in, making them very good pieces of equipment for those classes. Randarts could come with curses, too, of course.

The rest of the tree could be worked into a broader skill set that works on the idea of curses. Perhaps an active skill that gives temporary life regen based on the number of cursed items equipped (which subverts the -50% healing penalty, of course), or an activated "Cursed Touch" that debuffs an enemy by temporarily cursing a piece of equipment they are wearing.

I like these ideas.

[benli]

overgoat: I think a tree like that could work well as an optional tree. It seems like an aggressive version of gloom. The randomness of the tree (and gloom) limit its usefulness but with enough randomness on your side, it could be very helpful.

I would totally change the tree into something different, unrelated to equipment. Maybe random debuffs that also grant you powers based on your investment in the tree, or some such thing.

The reworked cursed class (next beta) has a lot more buffs and debuffs. Adding even more wouldn't be bad though. I'd rather keep the discussion in this thread limited to changes in cursed equipment, including whether or not it should be removed.

The artifact issue is the real bother for me. It puts the tree in a really unfortunate position:

Clearly this has to be solved for this tree to make sense. I think artifacts need to be cursed like other equipment. That means that getting the wrong curse on your artifact shouldn't ruin the equipment. That's part of the reason I proposed this change. The change means it doesn't matter when a curse gets applied. A "Curse of Madness" item at Level 1 is the same at level 50. Also these curses are more universally appealing. If you get the wrong one you can still get some benefits out of it.

Perhaps an active skill that gives temporary life regen based on the number of cursed items equipped (which subverts the -50% healing penalty, of course)

This has already been added. Unnatural Body now gives a +5% healing mod for each cursed item equipped. Cursed also gets a +2.5 effective hate bonus on hate-based attacks with a cursed weapon(s). A couple of Cursed talents gain bonuses at at earlier talent levels when wielding a cursed weapon.

Perhaps cursed equipment could occur naturally, as a third ego type that gives significant bonuses and penalties. (Think about the Resource Leech egos, for example.)

I like the idea of powering up cursed equipment that you find. The problem with this is that curses would have to be infrequent enough not to annoy other classes. If its that infrequent then getting something worth using is unreliable and it isn't worth investing generic points in. You also lose the ability to add synergies like those above. This would probably make more sense as a set of cursed artifacts that work best for the Cursed and Doomed classes.

I don't think curses as they exist really work, but I like the idea for both theme and because of the new Cursed/Doomed synergies. They could be removed altogether. They could be reduced to just a single talent simlilar to how it is now or like bricks suggests. Or they could be turned into the talent-like effects that I proposed. I'm still leaning towards the talent like effects because I think it would add some flavor and direction to building a class:

You want to build a dual-wielding Cursed so you start looking for "Curse of Madness" equipment for the Dex and offhand damage boosts. You find 1 "Curse of Madness" with the Level 1 boost to offhand damage and 3 "Curse of Corpses". You then find an "Unformed Curse" and can either choose "Curse of Madness" and get a Level 2 Dex bonus for dagger prerequisites and extra offhand damage or choose "Curse of Corpses" and start getting the Level 4 bonus of free zombie summons when you kill stuff. Neither choice is bad and neither choice will lock you into anything for the rest of the game. It just adds some flavor to your class build.

[lukep]

I'm changing my mind on its late game usefulness. A good purple item with a good curse is often better than an artifact.

One way to deal with artifacts in the new system would be to give them a 100% chance of getting an unformed curse.