Race+Class+Background(subclass?)

[Strongpoint]

It is a very large change of character generation but I'll go and propose it anyway

I'd love to see character generation getting the third option - background. Something that determines most of generics (racial trees should remain. As well as generics essential to a class) Another secondary role of background is determining the starting point. And of cause not all races or (meta)classes should have access to all backgrounds. And probably every class should get "default" background. Identical to current situation. Then additional can be added without breaking the current system

For example: Every race that starts in Far East should an option to get "celestialized" start for archer\brawler\bullwark\Berserker. Class skills remain the same but character starts in sunwall with a set of generics that is different to what standard character of that class gets

[Doctornull]

It is a very large change of character generation but I'll go and propose it anyway

I'd love to see character generation getting the third option - background. Something that determines most of generics (racial trees should remain. As well as generics essential to a class) Another secondary role of background is determining the starting point. And of cause not all races or (meta)classes should have access to all backgrounds. And probably every class should get "default" background. Identical to current situation. Then additional can be added without breaking the current system

Cool idea.

For example: Every race that starts in Far East should an option to get "celestialized" start for archer\brawler\bullwark\Berserker. Class skills remain the same but character starts in sunwall with a set of generics that is different to what standard character of that class gets

Note that only addon races start in the East. There are no core races like that.

[Red]

Default: As it is now.

Celestial: Starts in Sunwall, gains Light or Chants category.

Elvish Foundling: Starts in Norgo's Lair, gains Aegis for Shaloren Foundling, gains Harmony for Thaloren.

Dwarven Slave: Starts in Escape From Captivity, functionally Escape From Reknor but your ally is hostile. Gains Stone Alchemy.

Renfield of the Way: Starts in Isle of Rel, gains Finer Energy Manipulation.

Acolyte: Start in Angolwen and gain Teleport: Angolwen as a skill as well as a Phase Door Rune to move around in space. Gains Staff Combat.

Demonic Captive: Start in Seared Halls, gain Vile Life.

Born Out Of Time: Start in Point Zero and gain Timeport: Point Zero. Gain Chronomancy.

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I don't know what categories could be lost to gain these, especially since some of these are pretty powerful. (Chronomancy, Aegis.) Perhaps it might be better to just offer stat changes or a passive skill that has both bonuses and penalties? Any straight gains would just be power creep, so it has to be made with that in mind.

Interesting idea, though. Worth thinking further about.

[Faeryan]

I like the Acolyte stuff, but the rest seem way overpowered. Wouldn't mind some smaller tweaks though as the idea is nice.

[Red]

Well, the OP said it'd replace a generic category. The issue is, I just don't know what category could be replaced. Maybe it give it more modifiers, like an extra race thing?

Default: As it is now.

Celestial: Starts in Sunwall, gain permenant +2 to light radius, 5% darkness and light resistance, and -5 to defense.

Elvish Foundling: Starts in Norgo's Lair, Gain +5% crit chance and -1 life rating for Shaloren, gain +2 Strength and Willpower and -10% crit multiplier for Thaloren.

Dwarven Slave: Starts in Escape From Captivity, functionally Escape From Reknor but your ally is hostile. Gain +1 life rating but lose 10% movement speed due to injuries from escape attempts.

Renfield of the Way: Starts in Isle of Rel, gain +30% Confusion and Silence immunity and -2 life rating.

Acolyte: Start in Angolwen and gain Teleport: Angolwen as a skill as well as a Phase Door Rune to move around in space. Gains Staff Combat.

Demonic Captive: Start in Seared Halls, gain Vile Life.

Born Out Of Time: Start in Point Zero and gain Timeport: Point Zero. Gain +10% slowing immunity and -25% poison and disease immunity, since your body has never had to deal with them outside of reality.

Tried to balance them out a bit more. They all have (very vaguely) thematically appropiate bonuses and penalties. excepting Acolyte and Demonic Captive. Both of those offer only a bonus, however, it's a category you can aquire in game and requires points to spend. Thoughts?

[Strongpoint]

Well, my idea is more about class-independent "packages" than better starts.

Like

Sunwall guard package:

a) Starts in Sunwall and gets the same starting quest as celestials
b) Gets Combat training, Survival, Chants, Light, maybe Hymns (locked\unlocked and mastery of each is a subject of balancing)
c) Some classes may retain generics that they really need (like brawler) but other generics are gone
d) Not available for races that don't start in Sunwall when Celestials (like yeeks) and many classes (either because of balance or flavor reasons)

In that way we may get 'magic' Berserker that loses some combat training mastery and conditioning in exchange for celestials' toys (yet masteries should be lower than proper celestials get)

[Doctornull]

Well, my idea is more about class-independent "packages" than better starts.

Like

Sunwall guard package:

a) Starts in Sunwall and gets the same starting quest as celestials
b) Gets Combat training, Survival, Chants, Light, maybe Hymns (locked\unlocked and mastery of each is a subject of balancing)
c) Some classes may retain generics that they really need (like brawler) but other generics are gone
d) Not available for races that don't start in Sunwall when Celestials (like yeeks) and many classes (either because of balance or flavor reasons)

In that way we may get 'magic' Berserker that loses some combat training mastery and conditioning in exchange for celestials' toys (yet masteries should be lower than proper celestials get)

Yeah you'd want to go through every class and remove AT LEAST one Generic tree, maybe on Generic and one Class tree, and put those things in the Background package.

So anyone under Warrior could start with Celestial / Combat locked, for example, in addition to whatever the Generic side gave (Light and Chants? dunno).

[Sradac]

I actually posted about this in the addon forums about a month ago

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=42399

Basic idea is that, as mentioned in the post, what did you do before you became an adventurer.

These shouldn't be massive bonus's at all but simply something "different". This actually originally came about when I wanted to make a Planewalker Rogue class addon when looking at these talents, I got inspired to give every character an option to have little minor enhancements / changes:

Code: Select all

Planewalker Rogue

Tree: 
Planar Preparations
  Preparations you have made when getting ready to travel the planes.  These are items or techniques that any sensible person would bring with them.  

1. Something Sharp
  passive
  effect:   Because you are so well prepared, you are granted a + bonus to all saves.
  description: You always have something sharp with you.  A sword, a dagger, a kitchen knife.  It dosen't matter what it is, and it dosen't matter if you fight with it or not.  Something sharp is essential to have when walking the planes because of its many purposes whether its cutting, digging, marking ground or any other use you can find with it.

  
2. Sturdy pair o' boots
  passive
  effect: increased movespeed.  At higher levels increased defense.
  Description: The thicker the better.  You'll be walking in things you never want your feet to touch, believe me.
  
3. Blindfold
   Passive
   effect: increases blindness and confusion resistance
   Lots of things out there will drive an adventurer insane or blind if he keeps his eyes open.  You have a chance to pull your blindfold out just in time to avoid having your eyes burnt right out, or from having your mind scrambled.
   
4. Wet Blindfold
  Active
  effect: for x turns you are immune to poison and disease
  description: you know you can wet your blindfold and put it in front of your mouth to act as a breathing filter.  This will protect you (at least a little) from noxious fumes, smoke, and other breathing hazards

Other ideas I came up with were:

1. A farmer, giving you (slightly) increased healing mod (from years of eating good food you grew), slight poison resistance, and slight carry weight buffs.

2. A town guard, giving minor health regen and other minor protective benefits

3. Something giving minor boosts to elemental resistances.

I didnt get far along with the idea because I just don't have enough time to figure out how to modify the character create screen.

[Doctornull]

Other ideas I came up with were:

1. A farmer, giving you (slightly) increased healing mod (from years of eating good food you grew), slight poison resistance, and slight carry weight buffs.

Also +% damage vs. Animals (hello Bearscape).

2. A town guard, giving minor health regen and other minor protective benefits

Also +% damage vs. Rogues and stealth detection.

I didnt get far along with the idea because I just don't have enough time to figure out how to modify the character create screen.

I'd like to know how to do that too.

[jaumito]

1. A farmer, giving you (slightly) increased healing mod (from years of eating good food you grew), slight poison resistance, and slight carry weight buffs.

Also +% damage vs. Animals (hello Bearscape).

You mean (reproducing) vermins - a farmer's main weapon has always been pesticides, right? They should probably get the 'Pest Control' achievement for free, too.

[Davion Fuxa]

The idea is interesting, but if we want to give a category to spend in then maybe we should think about giving a default category for normal starts.

IE, if you start a Cornac, Halfling, or Higher character then you get Derth: Category as the default option. Alternatively if you choose the Sunwall Package you get the Sunwall: Category and your character now starts in the Far East. Where Classes come on to override where a race usually starts (Anglowen, Point Zero, etc) you get the respective default category for those locations.

[Doctornull]

You mean (reproducing) vermins - a farmer's main weapon has always been pesticides, right? They should probably get the 'Pest Control' achievement for free, too.

Those are trivial opponents so I'm going to assume you're joking.

The idea is interesting, but if we want to give a category to spend in then maybe we should think about giving a default category for normal starts.

Yes, absolutely.

This could be as simple as just giving everyone Survival unlocked by default, then replacing Survival with something different for other backgrounds.

[Delmuir]

This sounds interesting but why not do this:

Take one of the generics that you normally start with and lock it. Then, offer an location-approriate category that you could currently get from an escort mission as unlocked.

Then, switch out the category mastery. Make the new category 1.0 or whatever the locked category and make the locked category 0.8 as escort-acquired categories normally are.

This way, you aren't complicating the balance and game-play because you'd have a reasonable chance of getting all of that anyway. This just lets you customize a little bit.

On the point about background-oriented bonuses, you have the problem of power-creep. Thus, each benefit should be off-set by a penalty. I rather like the idea but you could go further with it… multiple options for greater customization.

[Davion Fuxa]

If the category is going to just be locked upon character creation then we may as well have a default category be available locked upon character creation instead of bothering to decide what existing category needs to be locked. That will avoid having to decide what category to lock for each class.

However, I like the idea of the category being available immediately to invest in because it gives more build options for playing around with on your character - and of course having more Generic Options means less of a problem from removing Combat Training Completely or Partially.

Some thoughts anyhow on this general ideas:

• Elvala Category - Spell/Divination
  Shatur Category - Technique/Conditioning
  Derth Category - Cunning/Survival
  Iron Council Categry - Spell/Stone Alchemy
  Angolwen Category - Spell/Staff Combat
  Point Zero Category - Chronomancy/Chronomancy
  Gates of Morning Category - Celestial/Chants

One will probably notice from above that I have categories from the Escort Rewards. Some thought would need to be given to classes that naturally start with these categories - maybe they would simply just have improved category levels when starting in locations that further boost their category. In a nutshell though, essentially the categories you can start with can eventually be learned through Escort Rewards - assuming you aren't going Anti-Magic.

Some more following thoughts:

• Irkkk Category - Psionic/???????
  Zigur Category - Wild-Gift/Call of the Wild, Wild-Gift/Mindstar Mastery, and Wild-Gift/Antimagic
  Undead Category - Technique/Mobility - with Mobile Defense modified

Psionic categories would likely be a good fit with the Yeek starting location - though maybe not Dreaming specifically. Some thought would need to be given on what category specifically would be given here and this category would also replace Psionic/Dreaming as the category rewarded from Zigur betrayals or Temporal Explorers.

Zigur would be special to start in, since it would uniquely give you the Wild-Gift/Antimagic category - and by association you would be automatically part of the Anti-Magic faction. In addition to it though, you get Wild-Gift/Call of the Wild and Wild-Gift/Mindstar Mastery and I assume you wouldn't have to do the little arena test to join the faction - a slightly lacklustre incentive but perhaps enough to make up for the fact that you are starting Antimagic immediately.

Last Hope and the Blighted Ruin start with the Undead are pretty straightforward, though I would modify to replace Mobile Defense in Technique/Mobility.

There is also the Ashes of Urh'Rok expansion of course as well to think about - no thoughts on that.

It's worth noting that from the Escort Rewarded Categories, one isn't mentioned here. I avoided Celestial/Light because it might be better if Anorithil Escorts are removed from the game. That isn't to say that I suggest making Celestial/Light unobtainable though....

Alchemists Laboratory Blueprint
Celestial Temple Blueprint
Prisoner of War Camp Blueprint

Remember these old ideas? Having Celestial/Light as a reward for beating an instance in the Far East could be a worthwhile idea.

[Doctornull]

I really like the idea of taking the best Escort categories and basing Backgrounds around them.

But, I don't like the direct Race = Background links. I feel like races are already a thing that works. You could do something LESS tightly coupled:

Explorer (default) -> Cunning / Survival
Dreamer -> Psionic / Dreaming
Visionary -> Spell / Divination
Penitent -> Cursed / Dark Gifts
Blessed -> Celestial / Light
Wildling -> Wild-Gifts / Call of the Wild

... etc.

If your class already has a tree, you CANNOT take that background. So you can't be a Blessed Sun Paladin, for example.

In some cases, like when the base class has Survival as a locked tree, it might make sense to take away an additional tree. For example, the Archmage gets Divination unlocked and Survival locked, so perhaps under this system he'd have to choose one or the other (or Celestial / Light or Psi / Dreaming or ...), but whichever one he chooses is unlocked, and the other just plain isn't on his sheet unless he finds the appropriate Escort.

EDIT: Also, maybe some races get EXTRA options, like the Dwarves getting access to Stone Alchemy (as you suggested for the Iron Council background). Then it wouldn't be their only option -- they could skip having arcane spells -- but it would be another way to set themselves apart.