Brotherhood of Alchemist quest ideas

[SageAcrin]

With the divergence from general artifacts to the Brotherhood quests specifically that is happening in the Artifact topic, I decided to toss up some ideas over here, in order to try to keep related ideas in one spot.

The issues broached were that A: No one really finds the final rewards that good, and B: Most people just grab point-granting Elixirs and don't care about the rest. Rather than having no Elixirs grant points, having them grant a more randomized and less relevant to single elixirs amount of points seems good. Handily, the maximum amount of Elixirs you can ever get is 5, and you average 3 or 4, and you get 4 points total off Elixirs, so there is a simple enough answer.

Here's my current new setup idea.

Last Hope-

Brawn-1 Generic point, +3 Strength/Constitution. The stat elixirs seem fine.
Stoneskin-1 Class point, +6 Armor. I haven't seen a lot of respect for the more defensive elixirs, so perhaps raising the stats would be a good idea.
Vitality-1 Class, +15% Healing Modifier. One of the more defensive and interesting replacements for the old Elixirs. I think 15% is good without being overpowered.

Derth-

Fox-1 Generic, +3 Cunning/Dexterity.
Avoidance-1 Class, +8 Defense. See Stoneskin. I think 8 might be enough, but it's hard to say-High Defense classes are going to get very diminishing returns from this, while low Defense classes don't dodge very well to start with. Maybe this should be 10.
Precision-1 Class, +4% all critical hit rates. Obvious, and combining all the critical hit Elixirs both makes Mindcrit classes less penalized and makes fighter/mages less penalized, without aiding anyone else much. Works fine.

Elvala-

Mysticism-1 Generic, +3 Willpower/Magic.
Savior-1 Class, +8 All Saves. This might also stand being higher, since low saves are rarely salvagable and high saves get diminishing returns. Same issue as Defense. But it definitely needs to be higher than 4, as you can, say, get more physical save from Brawn than Savior right now.
Mastery-1 Generic, +6 unused stats. The other stat elixirs break the normal stat cap. This does not. I think that's enough of a balancer.

Agrimley-

Explosive Force-1 Class, +8% Critical Hit Modifier. I think this is a balanced amount of Critical Hit Modifier, but obviously comments are welcome.
Serendipity-1 Generic, +8 Luck. Most people don't value Luck a lot relatively, partially due to being unaware of what it does. But mostly this just makes it compete with the other Elixirs better, its raw actual bonuses weren't that great relatively.
Deflection-1 Generic, +3% all resistances. I could see going with 2% here, instead. This seems like a logical Elixir.

Taint of Telepathy-Remove the Mindsave downside. I don't mind the making-it-a-Sustain idea that Parcae had, either, though maybe having the Mindsave downside in that case would be good. (Candidly, I think the sustain idea is better, but it's also out of place compared to other Runes/Infusions. Then again, this is a Taint...)
Wild Growth-Have the vines drain life out of the enemy as they deal damage, or have the user have increased Healing Modifier(by, say, 50%~) as a short term buff as well.
Invulnerability-Change to a Rune. Make it produce an instant one or two turn high-hits(3-5) Bone Shield. Moderate(15-20) cooldown.
Lifebinding Emerald-Reduce to Tier 4. Alternatively, allow someone to choose between having the gem made into a Ring before they get it, or being given the Tier 5 gem.

[Grey]

Strip out the generic and class points entirely and I'd say yeah, looks good. Keep the class points in and I suddenly stop looking at anything else at all, apart from a few of the stat points for some classes.

[SageAcrin]

I don't like the idea of removing bonus sources of Class/Generic(They allow people who have made build mistakes to somewhat compensate.), and looking at the Class/Generic as well as the stats can produce interesting balance questions. How much Class do you want? How much Generic do you want? Do you want a specific other bonus enough to take a point of Class over a point of Generic? There are a few classes that want all they can get of both, and now you have to prioritize instead of "Okay, I grabbed Focus/Foundations, now to get Foundations/Focus".

Personally, I'd sooner remove all of the other elixirs and just make the entire thing about getting Focus/Foundations, before I'd remove the points, honestly. Added versatility in builds is more interesting than straight up stat bonuses every time, even if it's not necessarily better. I think this enhances that effect, rather than stomping on it like removing the points would.

Edit:

Though, I do want to note that I have no problem at all with removing Foundations/Focus/replacement sources of Class and Generic to replace them, and putting an equivalent amount of points somewhere else in the game. Either as the actual potions as quest rewards, or as secondary points rewards for quests. I'm just not really for lowering the amount of Class/Generic in the game, though.

On the whole, it's at a good balance, and having special sources of Class/Generic that require your build to be more flexible, lest you get them late/never, is part of that balance for me. And it's hard to have a system where you can usually but not always get them, like the Elixirs currently work-and I like that effect. Which is why I'm suggesting this idea instead.

[bricks]

I'd rather the rewards were charms opposed to 1) a gem which you generally can't use on its own, 2) mediocre inscriptions that might have some places in some builds if they weren't so hard to get, or 3) the only consumable potion in the game, which I'd probably just forget to use since it doesn't fit in the game's paradigm. The suggested alternatives sound OK. Telepathy is a horrifically scummy effect that I don't like to see made so free in roguelikes; the Bone Shield effect has never felt useful or reliable, but as a rune it might be practical.

+15% heal mod sounds like a lot to me, but I'd rather the elixirs feel overpowered than mediocre. +saves/power suffer from exceedingly poor scaling, unfortunately, and I can't think of a way of fixing that without subverting the whole 'tiered' system.

[SageAcrin]

I waffled on 10% or 15% Healing Modifier.

It's one of those things that tends to be really good when it's good...but that's Elixirs on the whole, isn't it? And it's obviously not very special for some builds. I could easily see using 10% instead, though.

I would have absolutely no problem with all four of the final rewards being made into charms, but they'd essentially have to be rewritten. Though, perhaps not much more than, say, the current suggestions-say you get a Charm that grants ESP to All but has a big minus to Mindsave with it on, and have Lifebinding's replacement just be a charm with no activation and the same effects, for examples.

Having said that, this topic got made in part because someone was defending leaving Lifebinding Emerald as a Tier 5 gem as being pretty neat, so I'm not entirely sure how well it would be received from that angle. (And, optimally, I'd like Lifebinding Emerald to not be the only subject of conversation. >_>)

[bricks]

Yeah... I've always found the gem-tier scaling for mindslayers to be a mechanic of dubious value. It's just another inevitable equipment grind, only remarkable when you somehow trick the game into yielding an upgrade sooner than designed. At least with weapons/armor there is some motivation to hold on to older equipment, waiting for better stat rolls or egos.

[Planetus]

DO NOT remove generic points all together. Whether a character wants more class points, more generic points, or more of both entirely depends on the build. I have had several builds where generic points were more valuable to me than class points, simply because there were few class skills I wanted and many generic skills I wanted.

[Grey]

You're talking 2 generics and 2 class points, and no guarantee of either. It's hardly build-changing! And it wasn't that long ago people got along fine without these.

[Parcae2]

I also like the idea of being able to choose generics vs class points, since there are odd builds where generics are more valuable. Yeah, you can manage without, but more options = more fun.

Other than that, I don't think these suggestions really fix the balance problem. The stat boosts were already the worst rewards, so leaving them unchanged while boosting others seems dubious. I would go for any amount of resist all or healing mod over twelve points of health and a tiny damage boost increase, every time. And the Luck reward was actually pretty good - 1.5% extra crit chance and some small benefits for stealth and halfling builds is decent. That doesn't need a boost, I think, but the stat boosts do.

The point of any change, I think, should be to introduce some strategy into the mix, so that some of the final rewards are really good for specific builds but you might need to forgo other useful boosts to get them. With that in mind, having thought about it, the real problem is that all of the rewards except Lifebinding are completely generic; they don't help one specific build type over any others. If we want people to be prioritizing the final rewards (again, aside from Lifebinding, which some people already prioritize with lash mindslayers), then they need to be a bit more lopsided in their benefits, rather than just being decent across the board.

With that in mind, some brainstorming:

1. Some kind of heal rune (so that undead can use it); not sure about this since liches are the only undead who don't already have a heal source
2. By the same token, some kind of teleport for antimagic characters - maybe something that lets them slip past enemies, letting them use a movement infusion when surrounded - obviously needs a good cooldown and maybe some other downsides
3. Something that reflects a certain amount of melee damage
4. Something that increases the range of abilities by 1
5. Something that raises one ability by 1, disregarding the normal cap (so that you could get level 6 in one talent)
6. Something that takes one ability off cooldown
7. Some kind of boost to resist caps, or maybe a damage affinity for something specific

Edit: Thinking about it, I don't think it's possible to come up with stat boosts that are useful for the endgame without being completely broken for the early game. I mean, 8 extra points (assuming you invest them in CON) are 32 hit points; how many deceased late-game characters can you find on the vault who have -31 hit points or more? And how many of those wouldn't have died the next turn anyway? But I do like the "bunch of unspent stat points" idea because it favors odd builds and benefits stat-constrained classes. In other words, it's something that would actually be a strategic choice that people would adopt for certain circumstances but not others, which is exactly what I assume we're going for here. So maybe a bunch of unspent stat points (12?) would be a useful final reward for handing in all three potions.

[PureQuestion]

Correction to above: Liches have a heal source from undeath link, since all liches are necromancers.

[Parcae2]

Well, sort of. If you're a caster, it takes two turns (one to summon the minion and another to take its life), and if you're a summoner, using it comes with the significant downside of possibly killing all your minions.

[SageAcrin]

For one thing, two of the stat boosts raise Critical Hit rate a fair deal(Elixir of the Fox, which raises Cunning, and Mastery, which also lets you sink points into Cunning if you haven't hit the cap yet.). Should those be disproportionately nerfed, because critical hit rate is so important?

In actual fact, critical heavy builds are not universally desirable. Your average Sun Paladin or Bulwark has attacks that automatically critical-they don't gain anything off more crit rate, as such-and have no use for Cunning compared to other stats. A Temporal Warden or Paradox Mage is going to have issues finding the stats for Cunning(Paradox Mage is debatable, but all of their defensive skills are passive, so Con matters more than usual.). An anti-magic anything but a Berserker may seriously question the value of a critical hit rate, when they could be building up their Mindpower more. A Cursed is barely going to have the points to get the stats they need to use their skillset properly and not miss everything; Critical hit rate is secondary. You get the idea.

Having said that, there is an interesting way to buff the stat elixirs: Simply have them grant some physical/mind/spellpower along with their stats (An extra +3 to each would be symmetrical.). This doesn't end up straight up overpowered(due to wrecking stat caps) early on, while still granting more of a meaningful boost.

I'm not entirely convinced this is necessary, though. I've gone for those stat Elixirs (Mastery aside) many times. Don't underrate how scraping up as much Will as you can on a build that isn't building it can help your resources, for example.

[Parcae2]

OK, fair enough. I still think that the stat boosts are severely underpowered and would never take them, but as long as somebody out there thinks that they're good enough to take, they're good enough to be in the game.

[darkgod]

I've taken them nearly every time

[Grey]

Depending on class the stat boosts are really great. And as far as I know they ignore the stat limits as they don't apply to the base.