Vermin Wilder/"Arthromancer" and Corrupted Wilders

[Seian Verian]

Okay, so these are a few ideas, somewhat related!

The first idea is a Wilder that is either based around bugs in general (an "Arthromancer", who controls arthropods) or, even more broadly, around vermin! In which case it would include rodents, and maybe something else? Probably the Arthromancer version is easier to keep thematically coherent, and it would let you take on insectoid qualities as well as abilities to control and summon arthropods. I'm thinking that there would be one basic tree that links the various sub-specialties together, and then several sets of trees based around different types of arthropods. Each sub-specialty would include at least one tree that gives you qualities and abilities like a given type of arthropod, and another tree relating to controlling and/or summoning types of arthropod, or otherwise manipulating the environment in ways related to them.

Alternatively there could just be one or two trees relating to summoning, etc. thus leaving lots of room for the abilities and enhancements.

Related to the second idea, the Arthromancer could also have locked trees (possibly associated with certain events) that take on more of the aspects of contagion that are associated with vermin, becoming a spreader of plague, making them Corrupted Wilders.

This, of course, leads to the other idea. Corrupted Wilders are wilders that, while keeping a connection to nature, have become twisted. They use Vim, like Defilers, and this messes with their ability to use Wild-gifts, but they've found ways to work with that, becoming able to deliberately manipulate their Equilibrium and having different benefits for being at high or low equilibrium, using talents that draw on Nature's power and warp it.

Corrupted Wilders could come in a few varieties, but I think one interesting thing that could be done with them would be to have a Corrupted Wilder class, and perhaps Corrupted versions of other archetypes, that are affiliated with Horrors. This would not necessarily involve Blight in every case, since Horrors aren't strictly linked with that, but it does mean they have forces at their disposal that are alien to the natural forces of Eyal.

[twas Brillig]

Spiders have kind of a weird place in ToME, which makes them an interesting theme for a class. Apparently DarkGod mentioned the possibility of an entire Spiderkin campaign, but aside from that they're a surprisingly diverse set of creatures, implied to be intelligent, certainly magical...who mostly I ignore unless I stumble on a vault full of them. They're most commonly associated with chronomancy, which might suggest another non-corrupted, but still alien, twist to the class.

I was thinking the other day about what a equilibrium/vim class would be like. Obviously it's tough, since vim increases equilibrium pretty dramatically. One obvious method would be to have a talent that let you substitute vim or health for equilibrium to offset costs.

Horrors are super cool, though there's always the question of whether they should be understood enough to be playable at all. I'd argue that they're more alien than corrupted--there are about as many Horror spells as there are wild gifts or mindpowers. There's actually only one unique Horror corruption spell, and four Horror wild gifts! ...though they're all used by the same enemy.

[Micbran]

I think there's a witch doctor addon. A vim/equilibrium user.

[Winddbourne]

The initial lore about taint implies that it is a thread of powerful "natural" energy that simply isn't native to the world of Maj'eyal. So the idea of wilders tapping into the spreading power of the taint as a "natural force" seems not only logical, but inevitable. I'm still not entirely sure how the taint goes from being connected with crystals to being connected with disease and vermin but . . . perhaps it has something to do with all the crystal infused rodents that seem to be it's first attempt to integrate into the natural world?

Anyway thumbs up to taint related Wilders, after all this time the natural energy of taint might as well be an integral part of the world after all. lol

[Hogulus]

I had an idea for an Afflicted version of that Arthromancer once - basically, oriented around summoning swarms of arthropods, with different sustains to change exactly which ones are in your swarm (termites reduce armor / resistances, beetles do direct physical damage, mosquitos steal life, and so on). Part of the concept was giving it a choice between two Lichform-like permanent transformations - a bug-infested Hive Lich oriented around casting, or an exoskeleton-covered Chitin Lord for melee combat.

If we go with making it a corrupted Wilder, one interesting thing in the game already is that using Vim-based talents appears to increase your Equilibrium dramatically - maybe the class could have some special interaction with that, getting special effects when an equilibrium talent would otherwise just fail? Something along the lines of redirecting nature's displeasure with you towards your foes, maybe?

[Forger101]

I think there's a witch doctor addon. A vim/equilibrium user.

Link probably won't even load in 1.3 but whatever

I don't really recommend the class/idea. It turned out to be a horrible mess of trying to balance the general terribleness of both resources. Equilibrium has a fairly steep curve for fail chances and vim tends to run out very quickly. This would often times lead to a situation where you could do nothing.

[Seian Verian]

I think there's a witch doctor addon. A vim/equilibrium user.

Link probably won't even load in 1.3 but whatever

I don't really recommend the class/idea. It turned out to be a horrible mess of trying to balance the general terribleness of both resources. Equilibrium has a fairly steep curve for fail chances and vim tends to run out very quickly. This would often times lead to a situation where you could do nothing.

Well, that's sort of why I suggested that they have special abilities that would mitigate that balance, like instead of high equilibrium being simply "bad, that's it", there could be differing benefits for being at low or high equi, maybe not even all failures being actual failures, but possibly modified effects?

[Forger101]

If you could manage a way to balance them you will still have to account for the fact that the vim->equi is a one way interaction with two otherwise fully independent resources. This incentivizes specializing into one resource or the other with very little dipping into the other except for powerful abilities. Anorithils also have two resources that have a one way interaction but one is dependent upon the other. And still, the resource management of the class is a big turnoff for certain folks.

I'm not saying that it's not possible, just that it is going to be difficult to make such a class accessible and fun for the player. You would be better off coming up with a totally new resource that is simply the balance between these two forces. Being close to either end of the spectrum would incur unique benefits and detriments.

[twas Brillig]

I'm not saying that it's not possible, just that it is going to be difficult to make such a class accessible and fun for the player. You would be better off coming up with a totally new resource that is simply the balance between these two forces. Being close to either end of the spectrum would incur unique benefits and detriments.

How hard would it be to make egos and skills that target Vim or Equilibrium effect the hypothetical new resource?

Oh yeah, there was a thread a while back sort of relevant to the fluff here: What is Vim? DarkGod weighs in on the second page:

Chronomancy can not go beyond Point Zero, which corresponds to the spellblaze.
Chronomancy is also a local phenomenom to Eyal and can work beyond it (not even just on other planets in the same star system) that works because of the spellblaze there AND the destruction of the "god of time" (gods are local phenomenoms).

Blight is a way of using magical forces; it isnt "seeping" into Eyal; it's just that more people know how to do it now than before. There is nothing intrinsincally malign with it, just the will of those that wield it.

And lastly, Nature (with a capital N as seen on Eyal) is the not really sentient embodiment of what it considers natural. Again a local phenomenom.

Which is sort of sad, because I really enjoyed the idea of Blight being Equilibrium from Outer Space.

[HousePet]

Why not just use Equilibrium or Vim?

[Micbran]

Here's that witch doctor addon. http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/witchdoctor

[twas Brillig]

Why not just use Equilibrium or Vim?

Point. I'd say it would miss out on the sense of fusion, but I don't really know what that would look like to begin with? Equilibrium and Vim are literally opposites, so I don't know how you'd combine them (can only be recovered in/out of combat, runs out/builds up, etc.). Mechanically and fluffwise it probably makes the most sense for there to be Vim talents that do some nature-ish things. That would even fit with "blight is a tool to be used", where a pseudo-wilder could use it for Corruption effects or to heal/change/support.

[Radon26]

what about someone has a F*** tone of blight in the blood for "some" reason, and cannot control it directly.
instead he uses techniques to spread the blight on his enemies (EAT MY BLOOD AND DIE TO AIDS!!!) and nature techniques to undo the damage done to himself.
the cursed blight wilder

at some point, the 2 opposites come closer together and you gain some ability to control the blight, with your equilibrium.

[Seian Verian]

Why not just use Equilibrium or Vim?

Point. I'd say it would miss out on the sense of fusion, but I don't really know what that would look like to begin with? Equilibrium and Vim are literally opposites, so I don't know how you'd combine them (can only be recovered in/out of combat, runs out/builds up, etc.). Mechanically and fluffwise it probably makes the most sense for there to be Vim talents that do some nature-ish things. That would even fit with "blight is a tool to be used", where a pseudo-wilder could use it for Corruption effects or to heal/change/support.

I think that mechanically it could work by something sort of similar to hate, where it goes up when you kill things and goes down when you're out of combat or meditate. Also, fluffwise, I don't think there's any conflict with combining them- Nature hate's blight because of blight's attempts to change it in ways other forces don't. So the combined version could in fact be natural force that has been warped by Blight.

This does make me think of the idea of the potential for other Blight-warped forces though! Vim is already a Blight-warped version of life force, why not other energies? I absolutely think it could warp other things, given the lore in the Scintillating Caves which indicates it warps the elemental energies there. That definitely allows for warped Psi and Nature at minimum (natural elemental forces, Psi is made from kinetic energy and heat, thus has a relationship to fire) (Also, it would probably be possible to have a class that has a fused Vim/Life bar! Of course, there's no way for them to not have Drain, so either they'd need it in a non-Sanguisuge tree or Bloodcasting would have to be changed)

[grayswandir]

I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but whenever you spend vim your equilibrium goes up by 10x as much (or somewhere thereabouts). Therefore I don't really think that they're particularly suited to combining. You could certainly come up with some special abilities that changed this mechanic, of course.

The main problem, I think, with the witchdoctor class was that the vim and equilibrium abilities relied on different stats, and were in different trees, so there was a pretty strong incentive to specialize in one or the other. This kinda killed the point of the class. Here's an idea for a mechanic: make talents that have a vim and an equilibrium effect. When you use them, you roll an equilibrium check. If you pass, the (stronger) equilibrium action occurs. If you fail, you spend a small amount of vim (like 1 point) and the (weaker) vim action occurs. The effects shouldn't be completely different (both should be offense/movement/defense/whatever), but having them be somewhat dissimilar would make it interesting, I think.