ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Rumor has it that I've been working on a Captain class for the past few weeks. The rumors are now confirmed; this is a playable version of the proposed class. It's designed using the source code for b28 (I haven't tried the svn).

The class is not finished yet. There's still talent balancing to do, and at least one talent will get replaced. Most importantly, there is only one tavern in the game right now. It's on Westreach Lake, about halfway between Derth and Elvala. It's a bit spartan at the moment, so if you'd like to contribute a nice map (or people to hire, or an innkeeper, or all three), there's a fair chance it would get included.

Comments, questions, and fixes are always welcome. Comments from Darkgod count double.

mod features:
- Captains! Lead your party to victory! Try to look sad when you replace the fallen with someone five times stronger!

- Hired adventurers! For a very reasonable fee, anyone can get a bodyguard. If you play a Captain, you can get up to four! It's guaranteed protection until the first melee encounter! (Beyond that, results may vary.)

- Respawn tag (devs only): The most subtle change in this mod is the addition of a respawn tag. If that flag is set, the zone will respawn occasionally (like they did in the old days). Look in tavern-westreach/zone.lua for an example; look in game.lua (line 546, or search for "respawn") to see what I did. Nothing in the game EXCEPT for the tavern is affected by this.

Known issues:
- The Report talent does not increase its viewing radius beyond 1. The problem is in line 349 in Player.lua, but I'm not sure why it doesn't work. I'd appreciate any insights into it.
- Some talents may still apply to summons, in addition to adventurers. This probably won't affect you much.
- Adventurers don't level up when you do yet.

Thank you! I really look forward to trying this out, I will give you any feedback i have on this if you want, but please keep in mind that i have zero coding experience, so i have little idea what can be easily changed, and that I mean no disrespect with my views on your work.

I approve of this mod.

Moved to Modules

So i have played around a bit, i have a few suggestions, and one very large bug.
seems enemies no longer drop items, ever. except for bosses. I made it through all of trollmire, the arena, and a little of kor'pull and not a single regular enemy dropped anything. Interestingly enough i think this adds a nice trade off for the class though. You have to rely on your Hires much more than normal.
obviously more taverns will be needed, at the very least one in the East, and a larger choice of hires would be nice.
Maybe have one near all the major towns with two or three varieties in them, fighters and archers near Derth, cryo and pyro mages near Anglowen, Though too many Choices might make your team overpowered at decent levels
Also it would make sense to have higher leveled Hires cost more, for 21 gold i got three hires that were all two levels above me,
I Would also like to see Another tree for archer focused captains, that would allow them to shoot past their own troops, And maybe a talent that allows them to try and redirect hostility. seems my cryomancer was the #1 target on the field every time.
Overall though, this class is really fun, and the talents seem pretty balanced so far. You have done an incredible Job, Thank you very much!

hamrkveldulfr wrote:seems enemies no longer drop items, ever. except for bosses.

Strange, I'm getting normal drops. Is anyone else having this problem?

Also it would make sense to have higher leveled Hires cost more, for 21 gold i got three hires that were all two levels above me,

Good idea. I'll add a bit of cost scaling (although if you're hiring level 4 characters, it'll still be cheap).

I Would also like to see Another tree for archer focused captains, that would allow them to shoot past their own troops,

I don't want to make a bow tree to shoot past your friends because then enemy archer-captains could shoot past *their* friends. Fair play, and all that. You can pick up Staff Combat in the game, which does what you're asking for.

Cool. I was thinking I would have to do this myself later. I look forward to trying it. I may be able to help eventually in adding more characters to hire too.

Okay, here's a newer, better captain mod.

Changelog:
- ported to b29 (which got outdated instantly - you move too fast for me, DarkGod. )
- tavern map for the Maple Mug
- two more taverns, one for Rel and and one for the east
- leader talents no longer work on summons
- minion cost scaling (~60g for a level 50 minion, half that for a normal captain)
- slightly wider variance in minion levels
- removed cryomancers, but added a few new units
- fixed Report viewing radius (thanks, Darkgod!)
- replaced Maintenance with Fast Talk (extra special for undeads)
- added one graphic (shockbolt/maze_table.png. Shockbolt, I'd be happy if you replaced it with something more... shockbolt-y.)

Known issues
- Certain important (non-elite) npcs can be recruited using Fast Talk. I caught escort mission npcs, but there will be others. Try not to break your game by abusing this. (If you're of the coding mind, any npc can be made unrecruitable by adding the line to it.)

EDIT: Fixed a bug which would cause the two new taverns to crash on entering

Why dont they start with a follower at birth ?
Rel should have no tavern, probably not even be captains, this is not the Way

How do i include modules? Has this been tested with b30?

darkgod wrote:Why dont they start with a follower at birth ?

done (in next version)

darkgod wrote:Rel should have no tavern, probably not even be captains, this is not the Way

Removing the tavern (and prohibiting yeek captains) is no problem, but what is it about the Way that makes yeeks not captain-ish?

Yeeks are commies. All yeeks equal etc, joined in the Way. They have no command structure.

Grey wrote:Yeeks are commies. All yeeks equal etc, joined in the Way. They have no command structure.

...but some are more equal than others

Yeek != Borg. Borg have a command hierarchy and would therefore excel at being captains, but the basic premise of the Way is that all are equal. Closest a yeek would come to being captainy is if the recruits were always non-Yeek who wished to be part of the Way, and that to some degree probably requires brainwashing and/or mental coercion to get them to do as the Way wants, when the Way wants it, in the fashion the Way wants it done. That, I think, also precludes the need to pay for recruits, they're "willingly" joining the Way by agreeing to work for you.

Yeah in the Way every yeek is equal, their minds merge into a "meta consciousness" which tells every yeek what to do, which they agree to since they are part of this meta mind. No yeek captains
But maybe someday a Yeek Slaver class would be fun