The Sadist, a Cursed Ranger

[Fortescue]

Be afraid, little lamb, when I draw near
For nothing in life tastes sweeter than fear

Inflicting pain on whoever I may
A pleasure I savor, by night or by day

Wherever I walk, a shadow will fall
But always too soon, the prey heeds death’s call

[The Revanchist]

Very nice, a Willful Tormentor, of sorts.

Details, please?

[Fortescue]

Well, so far I've only talked to DG a little about it, and he wasn't entirely sold on either the name (Sadist) or the theme of a class that enjoys inflicting pain. I did not have much time to come up with a background for it, but I was thinking Cursed would be a good meta class for them. They don't hide (not like a Rogue), but they also have no honor (not like a Warrior).

I envision them as someone magically cursed with a mental illness, extreme sadism by dictionary definition, but instead of fighting it they have embraced it. Possibly because they were always a little sadistic, hunting and torturing animals as a youth, etc... So when they were cursed it really just brought the horrible beast inside of them out into the open. It isn't enough for them to just torture wildlife any more now, they want to hurt bigger, stronger things that can take more punishment before they die (though it will always be too soon...).

Why would they save Eyal? Well you may have noticed while playing, there are lots of creatures to inflict pain upon. You would almost have to be either numb or a sadist to enjoy all the killing you do while playing most video games if you were really your avatar So now they hunt bigger game, and savor every moment, with barbed arrows coated in salt.

Their curse, just like the one on the Cursed class proper, gives them mental power over their foes that causes immense dread and fear when they are nearby. Their body curse can be the same, but having embraced their curse, they also manifest a shield while doing damage, a physical manifestation of their joy at causing harm. There could even be a tie in with the Hatred meter and the shield, with high Hatred levels increasing damage resistance on the shield, etc...

There could be a skill that involves disabling an enemy completely once they are down to x% hp, at which point the Sadist would heal while watching them bleed out and writhe in pain as a result of their curse. Maybe not, that might not be feasible. I'm still trying to come up with ways to translate the theme into mechanics that would be "fun"

[Sradac]

Maybe draw some ideas from my incomplete Predator addon?

Check this one first for the Lore behind them:

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=37885

download here to play unfinished build
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/predat ... -class-010

[Fortescue]

I don't have a lot of play time these days, can you tell me your favorite parts of your design?

[Sradac]

mostly the lore behind them, why they are the way they are instead of just another Cursed that happens to use a Bow

[brown recluse]

It would be cool if it focused on lots of DOTs with very few direct damage skills. Couple that with lots of slows and pins, maybe add additional punishment to enemies under one of your debuffs, and you could have a very fun class. Watching enemies crawl, bleeding and helpless, only to die at your feet seems like it could be really cool.

[Fortescue]

It would be cool if it focused on lots of DOTs with very few direct damage skills. Couple that with lots of slows and pins, maybe add additional punishment to enemies under one of your debuffs, and you could have a very fun class. Watching enemies crawl, bleeding and helpless, only to die at your feet seems like it could be really cool.

Yeah, I just don't want to slow the game down to the point where it drags and isn't fun.

[Sradac]

thats why you kill them from the shadows with an arrow to the throat, to futher feed the ego of the master stalker

[Fortescue]

thats why you kill them from the shadows with an arrow to the throat, to futher feed the ego of the master stalker

Well, a sadistic person wouldn't do that. They wouldn't particularly care about the stalking aspect so much as the torture. Torture is kind of gross and hard to translate into game mechanics without slowing the game down. I would have to get creative with the flavor text to keep the theme going while keeping the combat fast.

[Isotope-X]

An idea that comes to mind, and seems fitting for the character. Would it be possible to have an attack inflict bleeding damage, which gets worse as the victim moves? Basically he's opening his own wounds and causing himself more pain in attempt to chase you, so that you can hit an enemy, run away or deal with something else as he rips himself apart.

Another possibility would be a talent which grants an enemy improved health regeneration (hear me out here) in exchange for you gaining a major buff to damage, accuracy, whatever. One thing a true sadist would want it to keep his victim alive...the dead feel no pain. Think about a torturer who knows how to revive a victim just enough to keep his heart beating. You could use this on a weak enemy, keep him alive, and feed off his pain to inflict further agony on others.

[The Revanchist]

That second suggestion... I think you found a torture mechanic.

Gameplay-wise, I think that would be pretty interesting. Inflict harm on the weak enemies, to power you up for the bosses. Then clean up whatever is left.

[Isotope-X]

That second suggestion... I think you found a torture mechanic.

I'm not sure I want to know what that says about me.

Another talent that I've thought would be an interesting addition to the game, and is at least somewhat fitting, would be a Passive which increases all damage caused when you're hit (through Spiked and such). "Barbed Hooks" or something like that.

[Isotope-X]

Also, in the Nullpack is a class called the Flenser, that covers similar ground to your Sadist idea. You might want to take a look at that for ideas or if you want to contrast them more fully.

[duckduckMOO]

Sadism doesn't make any sense as a power source. It's only potential advantage is as a way of leveraging power to make people not want to fight you, eroding their commitment to fight you, making them afraid, hesitant, even forcing them to serve you but you need to be already extremely powerful to do this. In combat it's almost a pure disadvantage (well it could be psychologically helpful but every class is already a killing machine so internal psychological advantages are irrelevant): if you're savouring their pain, you're not killing them efficiently. Hate is aligned with combat: it wants to destroy. Sadism wants to delay.

The theme of enjoying inflicting pain makes more sense as a defiler class. Cursed and doomed aren't necessarily evil. The angle of making everyone afraid to fight you through determination and hate (like "man of will" Keyser Soze) makes more sense for a hate class rather than simply indulging sadism (which is defiler themed.) That determination to do and be whatever it takes could lead to embracing sadism but the difference in origin makes all the difference in making sense as a hate class. I also don't know if afflicted have enough direct mental attack capability to really leverage a reputation for horrific deaths of enemies into something useful though.

Sadism as a power makes the most sense as a psionic rather than an afflicted. You could have a rare Tyrant class of psionic, who, like a solipsist manifests their mental powers in accordance with their belief that the world is their dream which they have potentially limitless control over, manifest their powers in accordance with their belief that everyone else is there to serve them or be used as a punching bag and sadism could be part of their powerset for enslaving people or making them scared to fight them. (Like Jaghut tyrants from malazan books.)

I guess the other angle for sadism could be some kind of feral mentality thing but then its mostly a side effect or a path and nothing central.