Attack Runes and Defense Runes

[edge2054]

I like the new debuffs on Attack Runes. I think it's cool that players can have the option to disable large groups of enemies. I see disables as a defensive thing and I think it suits what players use their inscriptions for (defense). That said the debuff clearing feels really tacked on. It feels like an easy out to give undead more options. Which is fine for now but going forward I'd like to see the design be a bit tighter.

So here's my proposal. Drop the debuff cleansing from Heat Beam, Biting Gale, and Acid Wave (Heat Beam will need something here, we talked about a buff removal on enemies hit but decided it might be too strong in NPC hands. Any thoughts on what to do with Heat Beam are welcome). Remove Vision, Invisibility, and Lightning Rune. Add three new purely defensive runes that each can clear one type of debuff.

Earthen Form - Removes a single physical effect. Grants X% immunity to physical effects and X armor and armor hardiness for 5 turns.

Crystallized Mind - Removes a single mental effect. Grants X% immunity to mental effects and X slow projectiles for 5 turns.

Lightning (something) - Removes a single magical effect. Grants X% immunity to magical effects and X% chance to avoid damage for 5 turns

[Davion Fuxa]

Crystallize Mind sounds kind of weak. Whether to try to remove a Mental effect or to prevent them, I personally would think there are better inscriptions in all cases.

As a note, Runes just don't do well with regards to removing and preventing Mental effects because Confusion can cause random fail and Silence shuts them down anything Arcane. Biting Gale gets a pass slightly because it does other stuff that can make the Mental Removal a bit of bluff. I think it would be best to sort of leave Biting Gale to carry it - personally I feel the Biting Gale rune is a notably improvement on Frozen Spear - but Acid Wave simply surpasses it, and that assumes Acid Wave's Disarm gets nerfed later.

Earthen Form seems outright weaker then a dedicated Wild that will reduce a percentage of damage. Immunities to Physicals aren't that important - outside of Disarms which notably need to be brought more in line with other detriments.

Lightning Rune just sounds like a better remix of the old Lightning Rune - no random jumping and now with more stable effects.

[edge2054]

They'd be free actions to use. Which gets around the confusion thing. I'm not set on the slow projectiles thing. It's meant to be a cold effect so there's certainly a lot of other options.

Earthen Form, armor is the most underrated stat in the game. I'm fine with it appearing weak. Players that understand the value of armor will use it and those that don't won't. It also clears physical effects which are very common so it doesn't necessarily need to be a better buff then the others.

As to just leaving Biting Gale and Acid Wave to carry it, I really disagree here. These effects are clearly tacked on because undead can't use wild infusions. That's not a good enough reason in my opinion. It's fine as a short term solution but going forward we should look for something that feels right.

[Davion Fuxa]

Agree with you on the point of 'tacked on for Undead'. However, I can only agree with you as far as removing Magical Effect from Acid Wave - Biting Gale is extremely overrated. The Damage is does it negligible - and that's just cause it's cold based; the Wet effect is nice but it is really hard to synergize a lot of talents to make use of it. About the only really good thing it has going for it is that it has a high chance to freeze targets which can buy you a turn to run away if necessary.

The argument of 'Armor' being underrated also doesn't carry well - if it did then Lightning Rune easily supersedes the usefulness of all other Runes and the old Acid Wave Rune that reduced Armor would be awesome. It's all in the context of the situation, and the the thing is neither concept really fits well with a lot of situations a player will likely run into in the game.

Anyhow, I actually had a passing thought on the Heat Beam Rune. It sort of Blends the Wyrmic concepts I had for the Fire Drake Aspect category with 'bloodcasting'. Here's a revamp of that idea:

• Burning Vengeance - This is an Instant Cast Rune that 'Requires' a Physical Detrimental Effect to be present on the character OR on an allied character without R Tile Radius.
  
  Initial Burning Vengeance to attack all enemies without a R Tile Radius of the character with X Burning Damage for Y Turns. The Y Value is based OFF the remaining duration of Physical detrimental effects on the character and his allies. Burn Duration Caps at Z Value.
  
  The Effect always removes 1 random Physical Detrimental effect on the character (if present) and reduce the value of other Physical Detrimental Effects by the (Z - Remaining Duration of other Physical Detrimental Effects) randomly.

Basic idea is to make a Vengeance Rune - It's Offensive, but it's powered by Defensive properties first and foremost.

[edge2054]

The argument of 'Armor' being underrated also doesn't carry well - if it did then Lightning Rune easily supersedes the usefulness of all other Runes and the old Acid Wave Rune that reduced Armor would be awesome. It's all in the context of the situation, and the the thing is neither concept really fits well with a lot of situations a player will likely run into in the game.

I'm sorry if anything doesn't carry it's this argument. Keeping the player alive is always more important than killing the monster. Hence -armor from acid wave not being at all comparable to giving the player +armor and armor hardiness.

It's like saying that shield penetration is just as valuable as shieling rune. Obviously not the case.

Anyway I really don't want to derail this thread any further arguing the finer points of ToME's combat mechanics. If you want to understand how armor works and why it's valuable I suggest you check out the wiki or dig into the code for yourself.

Thanks.

[Atarlost]

I don't think purely offensive inscriptions have ever been considered useful for players. If there were enough slots that the limit on inscriptions of the same kind was more significant than the limit on total inscriptions it would be different, but splitting condition removal from the offensive runes just means that no one will use the offensive runes just like no one used them before it was added.

[Orangeflame]

If I can get the 600-1700 damage runes Atamathon has, I'll jump for purely offensive runes!
But somehow, I don't see that happening.

[The Revanchist]

If I can get the 600-1700 damage runes Atamathon has, I'll jump for purely offensive runes!
But somehow, I don't see that happening.

Perhaps someone (who is not me We've seen how well my ideas go down...) should design a class about "building" infusions and runes? I don't know how hard the five inscription cap is, so that could put a damper on the whole thing...

Still, it sounds like an interesting concept.

[jotwebe]

So here's my proposal. Drop the debuff cleansing from Heat Beam, Biting Gale, and Acid Wave (Heat Beam will need something here, we talked about a buff removal on enemies hit but decided it might be too strong in NPC hands. Any thoughts on what to do with Heat Beam are welcome). Remove Vision, Invisibility, and Lightning Rune. Add three new purely defensive runes that each can clear one type of debuff.

Earthen Form - Removes a single physical effect. Grants X% immunity to physical effects and X armor and armor hardiness for 5 turns.

Crystallized Mind - Removes a single mental effect. Grants X% immunity to mental effects and X slow projectiles for 5 turns.

Lightning (something) - Removes a single magical effect. Grants X% immunity to magical effects and X% chance to avoid damage for 5 turns

Instead of lightning keep invisibility, and add the magic effect removal, effect immunity and avoidance chance. Call it Flicker or Blink Rune.

Crystallized Mind still seems a bit niche, which runes can't afford to be. Add a small to moderate global speed boost, or a bit of cooldown reduction.

Combine Heat Beam and Vision runes into Burning Glare Rune: shoots a burning beam and illuminates (but doesn't light up the area) in radius X. So on second thought it'd take more from Sun infusions, but I think this would still feel substantially different.

The mapping effect from vision runes could go to either one of those.

[astreoth]

you know there is actually a literal rune lord class just standing around in elvala so a class based around the make and use of runes is something that could be put in game heck its already their even.

and as for the five inscription cap yeah golems can go to six so it isn't a hard limit and being an inscription specialist class it wouldn't be out of place for them to have a few extra inscriptions from class talents.

[HousePet]

The hard limit is 6.

[The Revanchist]

The hard limit is 6.

Well... If anyone shows support, we can start drafting around this hard limit, can't we?

If not... It'll be doomed to obscurity. Which could be all fine and well. Maybe.

[Doctornull]

Hmm, I think I'd be more in favor of putting effect removal on Phase Door, Vision and Invisibility rather than making new Runes.

Also I like how the attack runes work as effect clear for Physical and Magical, it's only Mental that needs another answer because Silence shuts down Runes entirely.

[edge2054]

I can see phase door clearing physical, vision mental, and invis magic. Makes more sense to me then the attack rune clears.

[Doctornull]

I can see phase door clearing physical, vision mental, and invis magic. Makes more sense to me then the attack rune clears.

I have no opinion on the sensibility of attack rune clears, but it is a novel mechanic and for that reason alone it's not terrible IMHO.

Regarding Phase Door, Invisibility and Vision...

Phase Door: already reduces new effect duration of all types, add a chance to halve one current detrimental effect (any type) duration per turn.

Invisibility: being ethereal interferes with magical effects, and vice-versa. Each turn you are invisible you have a 50% chance to remove one detrimental Magical effect and reduce remaining Invisibility duration by 1 turn. If you have Tricks of the Trade, then your Invisibility duration is not reduced.

Vision: +20 to your Mental save while the Vision effect is active. 30% chance to remove each detrimental Mental effect each turn. NOT instant-use, because this is strong.