ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

The Doomed were once mages, as implied by their description text. What if by class evolution one could find another source of dark power, or the ability to atone themselves to unlock another type of power? I'm thinking that this could mostly be unlocked by the usual 50 of a stat (MAG or CUN I would guess), and the outcome of the Keepsake sidequest: if you got the Cold Iron Acorn you can access one for that character, and if you got the Iron Acorn the other.

If you got the evil end of the quest, you end up falling into the dark power again. The source of this is left to whoever of course, but I was thinking this would be more of a Demented class style due to implications. You also get a bonus to Darkness-related talents including your Shadows.

With the good quest ending, you atone and resolve to choose a new path. My ideas for this are either:
1. Proper Psi talents, to symbolize the absence of anger and so those who are Antimagic can still take advantage.
2. Mana based spells of a sort.

You also get a bonus to... something pertaining to the talents you get.

I thought only Cursed got the acorn quest.

Regardless, the evolution so far is mostly about adding skill trees, so maybe best to approach it that way.

Mana based skills can just be added with a new tree. Maybe just make it so that Feed also restores mana and give the class some spell tree options, maybe some hybrid hatred/mana costs for new effects.

Because of the way gear works and given that Doomed is already split between mind and physical damage, sticking to those two elements would make sense, so probably mainly physical spells (maybe a Tenser’s Transformation style magic-boosted melee set, a force wave set, and a boost-the-spells-of-your-shadows set?).

You’d also want to consider a way to reconcile spell power and mind power somehow (or make the skills not dependent on spellpower).

I think it’s better to stay away from Psi, as the class going hybrid magic means no anti-magic and that means a clearer choice between the two.

The easiest way to reconcile Spell and Mindpower is to create a skill similar to what some other classes get, that gives you X based on Y. In this case, a percentage of Mindpower/crit as Spellpower/crit, or similar.

Since I enjoy making these:

Doomed evolution, “Transcendent”

Core effects:

“Reawakened” (Generic tree @1.2, uses Cun for requirements)

All are spell passives

1. Fury Powered - Each point of Hate gained also generates 0.5 points of mana, +0.25 per skill rank.
2. Mental Control - adds 20% of mind power to magic power per skill rank.
3. Doom Control - adds 20% of mind crit to spell crit per skill rank.
4. Force Focus - adds 10% crit multiplier per rank.

Skill trees (pick one of three):

“Doomcasting”

All are spells

1. Active, Doom Bolt - single target bolt attack for physical damage. Costs mana.
2. Passive, Mage’s Will - Willful Strike damage boosted.
3. Passive, Hastening Force - reduces cooldown on Blast.
4. Active, Darkness Storm - area of effect darkness damage attack, can only target creeping darkness tiles and spreads those tiles to the affected area.

“Doom Knight”

All are spells

1. Passive, Doomed Might - Gestures can be used when wielding a two handed weapon. Each skill rank raises physical power by 20% of mind power.
2. Active, Damned Slash - deals damage to an adjacent enemy and inflicts a debuff (physical power against magic defense) that reduces their max health before the attack hits.
3. Active, Fated Step - moves to an adjacent empty space and hits all adjacent (basically fearless cleave)
4. Active, Fated Charge - teleports to an enemy in range and makes a melee attack that always hits.

“Shared Doom”

All are spells

1. Passive - Force Shadow - Shadows can cast their own weak variant of Unseen Force.
2. Active - Shadow Lord - Summons a stronger variant of the usual shadows that uses all their mechanics but does double damage. Actively summoned, duration is slightly shorter than cooldown.
3. Active - Shadow Sustain - Consumes a target shadow to restore health and hate (also mana with the passive).
4. Passive - Shadow Covenant - character damage reduced to 0. Shadow damage increased by 20% per rank.

Late but I did forget about the keepsake quest not being around for Doomed. You're probably right that they should be kept close to Technomancer's evolution path though. The only other thing I can think of is basing the "evolution path" around Cursed Aura, and that's just silly.

Iceshard wrote:The easiest way to reconcile Spell and Mindpower is to create a skill similar to what some other classes get, that gives you X based on Y. In this case, a percentage of Mindpower/crit as Spellpower/crit, or similar.

True, but also what about Blighted Summoning? It's actually good with shadows, so a magic build could work with the right direction. Perhaps going the way of Wyrmic's Undead Drake tree is also feasible, where talents use the greater of Spellpower or Mindpower?