ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've loved this game and it's continual development for some time, but two things bug me.
1.) No mages get an ability to grant elemental resistances as a passive. Mages deal with these forces all the time. They should be able to learn to cope with them.
2.) There are remarkably few damaging cold spells, and those that exist tend to be light AOE DOT.
To address these two things, I came up with this:

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The Experimentalist:
The experimentalist mage is the most feared of all mages by the standard community, and even most mages see them with some fear after the Spellblaze scarred the world. Experimentalists are not satisfied with the magics of the world today and instead seek new powers and new ways of using those mages are already familiar with.

Experimentalists use mana to fuel their spells, but also have a % chance of failure, resulting in one of three effects: a miasma of the chosen element fills the area dealing DOT for X turns; a wave of the chosen element shoots forth from the mage in a random direction; the spell collapses inward, striking the mage with damage of the chosen element.

SPELL TREES:
Precautions:
Elemental Safety (x/5) Passive: The experimentalist takes special precautions when dealing with elemental forces, reducing all fire, cold, lightning, and nature damage taken by spell backlashes by (15-75)% and reducing all other damage of those elements by (10-50)%.

Natural Safety (x/5) Passive: The experimentalist takes special precautions when dealing with natural forces, reducing all acid, nature, light, and darkness damage taken by spell backlashes by (15-75)% and reducing all other damage of those elements by (10-50)%.

Unnatural Safety (x/5) Passive: The experimentalist takes special precautions when dealing with unnatural forces, reducing all mind, temporal, arcane, and slime damage taken by spell backlashes by (15-75)% and reducing all other damage of those elements by (10-50)%.

Precautionary Master (x/5) Passive: The experimentalist takes great care when exploring, gaining X trap detection and Y see invisible.

Wildfire (unlock)
Ice (unlock)
Stone (unlock)
Storm (unlock)

Frostweave:
Hoarfrost (x/5) Activated, Target: Connects the target to a realm of ice through magical frost lines, freezing the outer layer of the creature, dealing X cold damage, and having Y chance to slow the creature by 25% for Z turns.

Frozen Web (x/5) Activated, Ground Target: Creates a web trap that, when triggered by a creature, pins them for X turns, dealing Y cold damage every turn.

Frost Spiders (x/5) Activated, AoE Target: Summons a swarm of tiny frost spiders in a radius of X around the target. These spiders swarm over any creature in the area and suck the heat from it, dealing Y cold damage every turn the creature remains in the field and for an additional Z/3 turns outside of the field. The field lasts for Z turns.

Freeze Ray (x/5) Activated, Beam Target: The experimentalist fires a beam of pure cold at the target, dealing X damage to it and freezing it for Y turns.

Time Flux:
Temporal Instability (x/5) Activated, Target: The experimentalist partially disrupts the target's standing in time, forcing parts of their body from the past and future to merge with the body from the present. For X turns, the target takes Y temporal damage every turn. The target also has a chance of becoming confused every turn.

Temporal Nuances (x/5) Activated, Self: The experimentalist replaces damaged body parts with those taken from a hypothetical future, restoring X hp. There is also a chance that one of the caster's physical stats may be altered by +/-Y.

Groundhog's Day (x/5) Activated, Target: The experimentalist forces the target into a temporal loop, making them repeat their last 3 turns for X*3 turns. The target also suffers Y temporal damage with every cycle.

Freeze Time (x/5) Activated, Self: The experimentalist freezes time for X turns, allowing him to freely act. The experimentalist cannot move during this time, and can still suffocate if without air.

Acid:
Vitrolic Ball (x/5) Activated, Target: The experimentalist conjures a small ball of potent acid and launches it at the target, dealing X acid damage. The target is also drenched in acid, taking Y acid damage every turn for Z turns.

Acid Bubbles (x/5) Activated, Target AOE: The experimentalist causes the ground to boil with acidic bubbles that pop up in random locations over x turns, each lasting x*3 turns and exploding if any target moves within radius y of them. Each explosion deals z acid damage to any creature within a radius of y*2.

Acid Breath (x/5) Activated, Cone: The experimentalist exhales a cloud of acid in a cone of radius x, dealing y acid damage to anything inside. Creatures caught in the breath also loose z strength if they fail a spell save.

Acid Blood (x/5) Activated, Target: The experimentalist turns a portion of the target's blood into acid, causing x acid damage and possibly causing stun, daze, confuse, or blind.

Unstable:
Void Step (x/5) Activated, Self: The experimentalist tries to create a void between two locations. The experimentalist and all creatures within a radius of (5-1) are teleported to a random location within a radius of (15-5) of the target location. If the spell fails, the effect is knockback and stun rather than damage.

Shimmering Shell (x/5) Activated, Self: The experimentalist errects a shield of strenth X around himself, lasting Y turns or less. This shield is unstable and may collapse at any time (random). When it does, all remaining health is dealt as arcane damage to all creatures in a radius of Z.

Living Flame (x/5) Activated, Target: The experimentalist summons a living flame at the target location. Every turn, the flame will spread (1-2) tiles toward all enemies within sight of the flame, dealing X fire damage to any creatures caught in it. The living flame lasts for Y turns before it dies out.

Psychic Duress (x/5) Activated, Target: The experimentalist uses psychic manipulation to try to force the target to fight by his side. Every turn for X turns, the target must pass a mind save or fight for the caster. If the target passes the save, it takes Y mind damage that turn instead.
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The above outlines a class with a lot of direct damage spells, access to fire (one spell only), ice, acid, and temporal damage (before the unlock of more fire, more ice, lightning, and physical damage), a movement spell (though it will take creatures near you with you), a shield spell, a healing spell, a 'friend' spell, AOEs, DOTs, DDs, and a variety of status effects. Altogether, this may make this class far too overpowered.

Of course, this is all just a first crack at something like this. This would be a great class to add all kinds of spells to, and categories like the last one (unstable, theoretical, experimental, practical, etc.) would allow random assortments of spells where a whole theme (i.e. acid, fire, etc.) couldn't be come up with or is already complete elsewhere. I'm also thinking that, to counterbalance the risk of spell failure, either the mana cost, the cooldown time, or both would be somewhat less than they are for the (roughly) equivalent spells for other classes.

1.) 2.) There are 4 damaging cold spells in the Water tree, 3 in the Ice tree, and 2 in the Grave tree for a total of 9. Compare this to, say, lightning, which has 3 in the Air tree and 3 in the Storm tree for a total of 6. The fact that the majority of cold spells are DoT seems to be a conscious design decision.

Finally, the concept of instability, failure rates, anomalies, and temporal damage are already covered by Paradox Mages. Who, by the way, also have an elemental resistance talent, of sorts. It's a nice thought, but in my opinion you're addressing holes that aren't there.

Wow, I see I forgot a lot about classes I haven't played in a while. Although, as a slight correction, the first Water spell deals acid damage, not ice damage. Combined with the fact that Ice is unlocked by a total of 1,000,000 ice damage (likewise with Wildfire, though I think Wildfire can also be unlocked with a rare tome, and the Storm and Stone trees require beating early/mid bosses), this means that most players will only have access to 5 ice spells, with only 1 Archmage spell and (I think, if I can remember it right and it still is that way) 1 Necromancer spell that do direct damage, which is usually much higher than the total damage dealt by AoE DoT spells.

As for the overall concept of the character, I based the risks of casting on the idea of experimental spells. Yes, chronomancers (and Temporal Wardens) cover risk of failure, but so do both summoners and wyrmics, and the side-effects of paradox are very different from those I outlined (or, at least, they used to be) and the process would be different (constant chance for each spell, reducing as you increase the talent level of the spell is what I planned). Also, experimental failure lays out the potential for a wide variety of other side effects, with them potentially depending on the elements used (ice can freeze you, fire can burn you, etc).

I also still like the idea of a mage class that's still pushing the dangerous edge of magic. The idea of time damage is easy to give away, as the base concept just means experimenting with the edges of magic. With all the damage types available in ToME, that gives us a LOT of options. I would avoid blight damage, since that is the realm of the corrupted and is supposed to drain vim, and I could see time magic being restricted to paradox, mind damage to psi energy, and light and darkness to positive and negative, though I don't know that those are absolutes. That still leaves us fire, ice, lightning, physical (each with 2 archmage trees already, plus a few others here and there), acid (I don't think there are any spell trees for acid), slime (or is that limited to anti-magic?), arcane (only has 1 archmage attack spell, though a few odd effects of spells do arcane damage), gravity (I don't see why that should be restricted to paradox), and nature (limited to equilibrium?). I may still be missing a damage type or two.

In essence, while you're right that the game doesn't NEED these things as much as I thought at first, I do think there's definitely room for them.

You wouldn't get slime regardless. Slime is a fundamentally antimagic damage type. I'm not sure how easy it is for arcane powers to deal nature damage.

Mind you, I'm not saying that an experimentalist is a *bad* thing, necessarily. I think, though, that it might fit better as an unlockable tree or two for the existing mage - something generic, that would, for example, give you a significantly increased chance/effect on spell crit, and possibly some interesting on-crit effects, but also some random-chance-at-badmojo. Make it a sustain. "Experimental magic" or some such.

Planetus wrote: I would avoid blight damage, since that is the realm of the corrupted and is supposed to drain vim, and I could see time magic being restricted to paradox, mind damage to psi energy, and light and darkness to positive and negative, though I don't know that those are absolutes. That still leaves us fire, ice, lightning, physical (each with 2 archmage trees already, plus a few others here and there), acid (I don't think there are any spell trees for acid), slime (or is that limited to anti-magic?), arcane (only has 1 archmage attack spell, though a few odd effects of spells do arcane damage), gravity (I don't see why that should be restricted to paradox), and nature (limited to equilibrium?). I may still be missing a damage type or two.

Physical (easy enough)

Acid, Cold, Lightning, Fire (elemental)

Temporal, Darkness, Light (stars)

Arcane, Blight (rare magic types, blight is basically corrupted nature)

Mind (direct mental assault, possibly the strangest damage type in the game, note that it generally requires a hit check)

Nature (poison is nature damage, as is slime)

I'd say any of these is fair game except maybe Blight but you'd need rather good justification for using Nature or Mind.

"Gravity" is simply a type of Physical damage.

The Precautions tree looks really boring. Maybe it should work similiar to the Wyrmic resistances, giving you resistances for fire when you spend a point on a fire talent. Or come up with something even better!

Planetus wrote:Although, as a slight correction, the first Water spell deals acid damage, not ice damage.

Not to derail, but as long as we're making slight corrections, the first Water spell actually does deal cold damage now, not acid damage.

donkatsu wrote:

Planetus wrote:Although, as a slight correction, the first Water spell deals acid damage, not ice damage.

Not to derail, but as long as we're making slight corrections, the first Water spell actually does deal cold damage now, not acid damage.

! Really?! I'm gonna make me another archmage, then. Still, it's an AoE DoT, which tend to have such low damage rates in this game as to be almost useless.

As for the suggestion to make this an unlockable Archmage tree, there are enough of those already. I'd rather it be an unlockable Necromancer or Alchemist tree (works better for the Alchemist, I think), though they both get one unlockable tree already.

Uh the AOE DOTs are extemely potent actaully. I.E: Ice Storm can get well over 100 damage per turn, for 15 turns for a very low cost. Same for glacial cloud

Tidal Wave is also great and has an excellent damage per cast ratio.

Freeze is one of the best single target nukes in the game damage wise and is also a great disable (though the long cooldown means you can't use it often). The water tree over all is one of my favorite archmage trees (though I wish the uttercold tree was better).

Anyway I like the Frost Spiders spell and the Time Flux tree looks pretty neat (even if it might be better for a paradox mage, they could use some new trees >.>)

Planetus wrote: ! Really?! I'm gonna make me another archmage, then. Still, it's an AoE DoT, which tend to have such low damage rates in this game as to be almost useless.

DoT aoe spells are good. I won on roguelike with a geomancer (b37 iirc) that mainly used earthquake, ice storm and corrosive vapour. It was my easiest win.

Maybe I just have problems from not investing much in AoE DoTs, but, for example, level 1 of Flame offers 65.5 damage in one turn, while level 1 of glacial vapor only offers 6.3 damage per turn for 3 turns. That's a total of 18.9 damage, assuming the target is in the AoE for all three turns. At level 2, the numbers are 88.8 for flame and 8.6 for 5 turns for vapor, or 43 damage (again, assuming all three turns). Comparing Fire Flash to Tidal wave (tier 3 spells), the numbers are 66 vs 12.1*4 (48.4) and 89.6 vs 65.6. I guess, looking at it, I could see that AoE DoT damage may get rather high for level 5 spells, with both increases in damage and increases in duration, but that still assumes the target says in the area all those turns. From my limited experimentation with AoE DoTs, that seems rather unlikely unless you're in a good environment for it (closed spaces). Even if you lay the spell up right in front of you, how often do battles with serious bosses not range the field?

I will agree, though, that Freeze is one of the best spells in the game. High damage, all at once, and with the added benefit of freeze. The only thing that makes it not broken is the long cooldown time.

Most enemies don't flee from the damage, even if it's killing them (except some casters, but they're dumb and they'll walk back into the damage zone). I killed several bosses without taking any damage by spamming DoT aoe spells and Protraveling behind walls. They just sat there and died.

In the endgame, corrosive vapour lasted long enough that you could stack it. Along with earthquake and ice storm you can clear out rooms of enemies in several turns. And archmages have plenty of spells to control enemy movement.

The best part of DoT aoe spells is killing several enemies offscreen in a room you haven't set foot in yet.