ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've had some time to think about this after reading everyone's criticisms of my re-org of the class, and checking out the Razakai and HousePet add-ons and here is my proposal.

All changes to abilities are noted after the (-). If nothing is after then there are no changes.

Necrotic Minions:

1. Create minions - This is just the same thing only it'll never summon advanced minions.

2. Aura Mastery -

3. Surge of Undeath - Buff this.

4. Skeleton Mastery - This is a truncated minion mastery skill. Affects just the first five skills of minion mastery. See Lichform...

Nightfall:

1. Invoke Darkness - see Lichform...

2. Circle of Death - see Lichform...

3. Fear the Night - see Lichform...

4. Rigor Mortis - This will be temporarily nerfed. Namely, minions do not get an attack buff after casting this spell. See Lichform...

Animus: all skills become Will-based.

1. Consume Soul - see Lichform...

2. Animus Hoarder - see Lichform...

3. Essence of the Dead - becomes "instant" with Lichform. See Lichform...

4. Animus Master - This would be an expensive Sustain… probably 250 mana. It creates a 25-75% chance of recovering a soul from a destroyed minion, scales with Will. More so, the effect of recovering a soul is so violent that it actually causes between 0-10% of the maximum life of the destroyed summon to the surrounding tiles… Does not affect you or your minions. The damage scales with Magic. See Lichform...

Shades: UNLOCKED.

1. Summon ghosts: this is a damage spell of starter-level strength. Low cost (starter tree). It summons a range of angry spirits to attack a random selection of tiles around the hero.

2. Ghostly Visage: Summons spirit to mimic your form so convincingly that enemies are likely to attack it… short cool-down.

3. Fear of Death: Not effective against undead. Causes spirits to attack single enemy, causing such fear that it drives the enemy insane. Causes status effects.

4. Visions of Death: Spirits can tell when death is near. They're eager for company...

A sustain that increases the damage you do to enemies that are near death. This includes the damage that your minions do. It has a side-effect though… if also increases the damage done by your enemies when you're near death by the same amount. Doesn't stack with other Necromancers.

Necrosis:

1. Blurred Mortality - See Lichform.

2. Vampiric Gift - See Lichform.

3. Impending Doom - See Lichform

4. Lichform - Replace Celestial/Star Fury with Lichform tree. Lichform stat and resist bonuses stay the same.

Three more bonuses: Blurred Mortality increases effect by 100 life. Vampiric Gifts reduces mana cost by 50. Impending Doom increases damage slightly.

See Lichform category...

Grave: LOCKED.

1. Chill of the Tomb - see Lichform

3. Will o' the Wisp - see Lichform

3. Cold Flames - see Lichform

4. Frost Dusk - temporarily nerfed. No "darkness heal" ability until after Lichform. See Lichform...

Advanced Minion Mastery: LOCKED

1. Dark Empathy - See Lichform…

2. Undead Explosion - See Lichform.

3. Assemble - Runed Bone Giant is only possible in Lichform. See Lichform.

4. Advanced Summons - all of the advanced summons such as Vampires, Ghasts, Mummies, Wrights, etc. get summoned with this skill. It's just like summon minions except with the percent chance to summon improving per level like the original Minion Mastery. This would never summon skeletons… just the more advanced summons on a percentage level like they are now. It would only summon up to your max summons, of course. Cannot summing Lich with Lichform ability. See Lichform.

Ice: LOCKED

Lichform: LOCKED. This category is created by completing the Lichform transformation. It is a Generic Category. All skills are passive.

1. Night of the Lich (affects Nightfall Category)

Each point in this skill, adds the "increase damage caused by minions) ability to one of the Nightfall skills. At lvl 5, it slightly reduces the cool down and mana cost of all skills in the Nightfall Category.

2. Soul of the Lich (affects Animus Category)

First point improves effect of "Consume Soul" in Animus Category.

Second point slightly reduces mana cost of "Animus Hoarder."

Third point makes "Essence of the Dead" and instant-effect ability.

Fourth point adds one to max soul capacity. Fifth point adds +1 to max soul capacity and reduces "Animus Master" sustain cost from 250 mana to 150.

3. Grave of the Lich (affects Grave Category)…

First point increases damage of "Chill of the Tomb"

Second point decreases mana costs of "will o' the wisps" sustain from 50, to 40, and improves damage.

Third point decreases, by up to 50%, the damage the Grave spells do to minions (and yourself maybe?). Scales with Magic.

Fourth skill adds "grasping claws" effect to "Cold Flames." This adds damage and potentially the "bleeding" and some immobility or slow effect.

Fifth skill adds the "heal from darkness damage" ability back to the Frostdusk skill.

4. Master Summoner (affects Necrotic Minions and Advanced Minion Mastery)

First point in this category adds ability for Necromancer to "see" what his minions see.

The second point adds a small damage shield to the hero based on a percent of the max life of the minion used, like 5-15% and these shields can stack. Also, reduces cool-down of "Undead Explosion" ability from 10 to 8.

The third point in this category adds the 20% chance of a Runed Bone Giant to the Assemble skill.

The fourth point in this category improves the strength and life of all advanced summons.

The fifth point in this category makes it possible to summon a Lich. It also increases maximum summons by two and maximum soul capacity by 2.

My theory here is to make the Necromancer more thematic, after all, the Lichform is the goal of Necromancy. It should be central to the class.

Yes, this eliminates some skills and changes how the class plays… so be it.

Yes, it eliminates the Celestial/Star Fury category and thus, the pure caster. I'm happy to add another nuking category if someone really wants it. More so, I'd be happy to do the same with a summoning class. That way, only the undead are stuck with the nerfed Necro.

It adds a generic full of passive buffs to Necro skills… if you get Lichform. It also has a utility damage and defense category that I'm not married to… I only put it in there because it makes the early start and the entire first-half of the game harder, thus the "Shades" tree is just there to make the game a bit easier in the start… it's not super useful for later in the game.

I think this makes the Necro a bit more elegant to play and significantly more coherent.

It also has less options of play-style but possible two more locked categories can be added: another summoning and another nuking. that way, someone can play a Necro without being a Lich… especially the Undead. However, I don't think that's necessary or desirable.

Not keen on having a load of talents not reach full potential outside of Lichform. Since Undead can't get Lichform.

And I still think Aura Mastery shouldn't be in Necrotic Minions.

I don't disagree about Aura Mastery but in my many attempts, I haven't found a good home for it.

As for talents not reaching their full potential, yeah… it sucks but I think it makes sense with the class. It's thematic. Besides, it would take 20 talent points to maximize the Lichform category so most of those skills can't be maximized anyway. As I see it, it's essentially as any class: opportunity cost of using talent points.

The entire class is a mess of skills and it's bloated with souls, neg/pos, mana, and life management. This would simplify the management while also defining the class.

It'd make the undead races sub-optimal for the class but that also makes sense. Why would an undead need to, or bother to, study Necromancy except in the manner that the Master does, i.e. minions?

I get your criticism and I'm not disinclined to it. However, what's the point of Lichform? It doesn't help the summoning Necro and it's not necessary or even desirable for the nuker? The only thing it has are some stat boosts… why not make it worthwhile?

My goal was to make the Necromancer viable without Lichform but powerful with it.

Designing talents that can't reach full potential will be perceived as a limitation to players. It makes sense mechanically, but it won't necessarily be enjoyable.

The goal of Lichdom is eternal existence. For an undead player has been raise by an incompetent necromancer, mastering necromancy would be a good way of protecting themselves from suddenly decaying. Essentially, Lichdom is maintaining your own existence with magic. Whereas necromancy is the animation of the dead as servants.
Mechanically its all about power over life and death. Lichdom is mainly a thematic thing. Mechanically its about getting the bonuses of being undead. Which is protecting you from death.
Other fun necromantic pursuits are bringing the dead to life and bringing the living to death.

There's an easy enough fix I suppose…

Just make it such that adding a category point to any of the categories affected by Lichform would give you the same benefit of putting the five talent points into the related skill in the Lichform category.

That way, you can get the benefits of the Lich-enhanced skills without having to actually be a Lich. That would solve the undead problem as well.

Sure, it would come at a cost of not being able to get the other Lich bonuses but that already exists.

This wouldn't be a huge obstacle as I already start the Lichform category as LOCKED.