ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I wonder if such a thing could make its entrance in the game.

It's without the fluff text yet, just pure mechanics. I wonder what do you think, if such a race would be an interesting play choice.

Race name: Vampire
Subrace of: Undead
Stats: +1 STR, +1 WILL, +1 DEX
Xp penalty: 140%
Hp per level: 11

cold resistance: 10%
electricity resistance: 10%
poisons resistance: 10%
diseases resistance: 10%
darkness resistance: 20%
light resistance: -20%
fire resistance: -20%


POWERS:

SLOW METABOLISM
activated power
activation: 1 turn
travel speed: instant
cooldown: 50-talent_level*5
duration: 5+talent_level*2

for the duration, poisons, diseases, and air level reduction occurs only every second turn (if its too hard to code - reduce duration of poisons and diseases by 2, increase air capacity by 100)
at talent level 3 - include curses
at talent level 5 - include hexes

alternatively, this could be a passive ability, just slowing down all posions/diseases (duration twice longer, but effects halved)

BLOOD DRAIN
activated power
activation: 1 turn
travel speed: instant
cooldown: 35-talent_level*5
duration: 3+talent_level

Grab the opponent (grapple like effect - removed if either part moves)

each round the drain stays active, increase actor's all stats by 1+talent_level, while reducing them for the target for the same value.

after the link gets broken or duration runs out, the increase/reduction effects stay for another duration, then start fading back in the same speed (1+talent_level per round).

alternatively, the cooldown might be increased by 15 turns, and activation time reduced to instant.


MESMERIZING GAZE
activated power
activation: 1 turn
travel speed: instant
cooldown: 35-talent_level*5
duration: 3+talent_level

Test the mind save of the opponent
talent level 1: the opponent becomes dazed
talent level 2: after the effect wears off - lower opponents mind saves by 5+talent_level*2 for another duration
talent level 3: the opponent becomes paralyzed for the duration
talent level 4: after the effect wears off - lower opponents speed by 5% for another duration
talent level 5: the opponent becomes your slave


CHILD OF THE NIGHT
activated power
activation: 1 turn
cooldown: 50-talent_level*5

at level 1 - phase door in radius 5+talent_level
at level 2 - summon 2d2 bats near entrance point of the phase door
at level 4 - darken the exit area of the phase door, and grant temporary see in darkness
at level 5 - the phase door becomes controlled

marchewka wrote:alternatively, this could be a passive ability, just slowing down all posions/diseases (duration twice longer, but effects halved)

If it is passive then there is no duration. There is probably some missing syntax in this sentence here?

marchewka wrote:MESMERIZING GAZE
duration: 3+talent_level
talent level 3: the opponent becomes paralyzed for the duration
talent level 4: after the effect wears off - lower opponents speed by 5% for another duration
talent level 5: the opponent becomes your slave

A 8+ level paralyze effect would be epically overpowered. This skill is completely not balanced considering that monsters might also use this. I don't think anyone wants to see a vampire paralyzing the player for 10 turns and then enslaving him (which would be arguably worse than losing the game). Enslaving should not work on bosses or elites.

You might want to turn it into a 1 turn paralyze + a 3 turn confuse (which is pretty damn lethal if you are on the receiving end of it).

marvalis wrote:

marchewka wrote:alternatively, this could be a passive ability, just slowing down all posions/diseases (duration twice longer, but effects halved)

If it is passive then there is no duration. There is probably some missing syntax in this sentence here?

I believe that "duration" was referring to the diseases and poisons. If I am understanding correctly, a (normally) 5 duration poison dealing 15 nature damage per turn would instead deal 15 damage on turns 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, and last twice as long as a consequence.

re: slow metabolism - i apologize if the wording was poor. What I ment was exactly what Lukep guessed.

re: mesmerizing gaze - good point about paralysis. Now, what would change if the paralysis effect were gone alltogether, and each "tier" effect past 1st required an additional mind save to kick in?

Cool ideas, marchewka. Here's my take on the race.

Stats: Maybe reduced constitution, or reduced stats overall? And a life rating of 10. The modified resistances (+/-10%) are semi-trivial and could probably be ditched. I know some like the idea of a vampire race being susceptible to light and fire damage, but practically this just means they'd die to luminous horrors a lot.

Slow Metabolism: I like it, and I do think it would work better as a passive, or perhaps a sustain that had a penalty for maintaining (reduced movement speed, as an example). The waters-of-life code could possibly be hijacked for this. Since curses and hexes tend to be non-DOTs, the application doesn't really make much sense. Unfortunately I think this sort of effect is hard to generalize without writing code for every status effect. I also worry about the general usefulness of this skill, since poisons and diseases are not unheard of, but perhaps not common or dangerous enough to spend five generic points trying to half-avoid.

Blood Drain: Lots of things could be done here. One thing I think is important in designing a race is making sure that it doesn't interfere with regular gameplay too much (though Undead kind of get a pass). I like the idea of draining attributes. I think the attribute draining could be much larger (which is why I suggested negative stats overall for the race), and the fading could be much slower, so feeding is something that needs to be done often but not constantly. Perhaps it could fade in a non-linear fashion, so it's easy to maintain moderate stat bonuses but large stat bonuses disappear quickly.

Mesmerizing Gaze: Picking up a new effect every talent level is kind of against the spirit of ToME. I think this would be cool as a Pacification Hex-style effect (chance to daze each turn while active, plus an initial daze effect) that breaks if the target moves out of line-of-sight (like Doomed's Feed). Enslaving makes sense thematically, but its already the Yeek's thing.

Child of the Night: Like I said before, picking up new effects on every talent level is inappropriate for ToME. I like the idea, though. What about a short duration invisibility + increased infravision that also summons 1/1/2/2/3 bats on use? It'd be a powerful escape ability, especially when combined with other mobility options.

Yeah, we really have to get Vampires playable someday. They are planned as of now but not exactly high-priority from what I know.

So, as for this post in particular:

The stats and resistances make sense, but PC races tend to not start with much.
I do understand wanting to be faithful to the NPC.

I'm surprised by the lack of a +stats passive like Skeletons and Ghouls.
I think something like +1 str/con/mag/wil would be nice and fit what Vampire NPCs are supposed to be, that is fighter mages(leaning towards necro).
You could also put some of the resistances(and vulnerabilities!)there.

As for the whole hypnosis/domination thing...

marvalis wrote:. Enslaving should not work on bosses or elites.
You might want to turn it into a 1 turn paralyze + a 3 turn confuse (which is pretty damn lethal

Why not make it have a different effect based on enemy rank?
Lower rank enemies are dominated, average/non elite are dominated OR debuffed(or, perhaps both), elite+ are debuffed.
I think that'd be way better than doing nothing at all against higher rank foes.


Blood Drain: I'd keep the +stats small, and focus on regaining life.

Also some flavour/thematic considerations:
1)Despite the light vulnerability, do we know if Maj'eyal vampires are actually supposed to be vulnerable to normal sunlight? They can spawn fine outside during the day in certain areas, but some Dreadfell lore mentions walking in the sunlight as something Vampires just can't do...
However it would be far more convenient to assume that sunlight just causes them extreme distress but - somehow - not enough to justify any mechanical penalties. Magical/concentrated light such as that conjured by horrors, Celestials...would still hurt them more.

2)Vampires likely wouldn't need to equip the cloak, being human-looking enough. That's an extra bonus. Or, if they HAVE to be made sun vulnerable by default, the cloak could do something about that.

3)On the other hand(and related to the 'human-looking')...for some reason, I'm a bit put off by Vampire being a race rather than an extra 'background'/template like it was in T2, more so than for other undead types.

Considering how similar to their previous lifes they can be, does it make sense for them to not have any racial powers from pre-undeath?
And for all Vampires to (apparently)be human...a Dwarf or Halfling Vampire sounds like it could be fun.
Since I doubt we're going to get Undeath to be changed from a race to an extra, what if Vampires had access to an unique quest which gave them the choice to reconnect with their racial roots, thus regaining their racial tree at a lower mastery? And perhaps lowering their Vampire mastery in exchange.
Cornacs could get something different, say +1-2 generics.

There's the issue of player tiles, though.
You start with a human sized tile but then suddenly 'remember'you were a Halfling ...

My humble opinion is that the race really needs a way to regen HP. I think an undead race without any way to do that would be very difficult to play as most classes.

A vampire race without leeching health goes against a long tradition of gaming! (or is that called original?)

One idea might be to disable all health regen (or even have a small negative regen) and return some damage as healing as the first of the talent trees. This would make vampire a natural match for Doomed, Cursed and Necromancers, all of which seem thematically appropriate.

I much prefer the idea of draining stats instead of health, for reasons outlined pretty heavily in the various discussion about different "drain" effects (drain life egos, resource drain). But yeah, as an Undead subrace, vampires would need some form of health regeneration, I guess. Reassemble and Retch are two of the most powerful healing abilities in the game, so I wonder if the whole idea of restricting Undead from using infusions (namely Healing and Regeneration) is self-defeating. Hmm...

As an aside, I wonder how easy it would be to give Vampires an innate Blurred Mortality effect.

On making Vampires an "extra" instead of a race - if this is the route desired, just make Vampire a class.

Zonk wrote: I'm surprised by the lack of a +stats passive like Skeletons and Ghouls.
I think something like +1 str/con/mag/wil would be nice and fit what Vampire NPCs are supposed to be, that is fighter mages(leaning towards necro).

I'd actually suggest that those talents should be changed on skeletons/ghouls, since they're immensely boring. It gives a bonus for certain classes without really giving a very unique feel to the race, especially later in the game when your stats will be very high anyway. It would be much more interesting if they had some passives or actives that gave more individual thematic effects, especially ones that complimented the other racial skills they have.

For the draining attack how about an increase to regeneration and adding to temporary hit points?

Maybe something like:
Duration 5 + level
Cooldown 20 - (level)
level 1 + 100% healing mod + 10% total hit points
level 1 + 150% healing mod + 15% total hit points
level 1 + 200% healing mod + 20% total hit points
level 1 + 250% healing mod + 25% total hit points
level 1 + 300% healing mod + 30% total hit points

The idea being sucking the life out an enemy temporarily invigorates the vampire and makes them tougher, but does not directly provide a single large heal.