ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hello

In the graveyard I got cursed.
Im told to check my talents.
Can not see a thing except I have 'hate' and a number (9,6/14) below mana.

What happened to my character?

Tom

I had the same thing happen to me. Didnt see what changed at first until I noticed that drops suddenly started having the 'cursed' prefix. Checking my talents again I saw that I had gained Cursed/Fateful aura skill group with 1 point in Cursed Touch. Not sure if it's the same for you, there might be some random factor involved.

Because I play a fighter this is indeed a bit of a curse as I havent invested in Willpower which seems necessary to make the talents gain benefits to offsets its detrimental effects. On the other hand I now have an interesting different way to build my fighter. I love this kind of randomness in the game, it makes you adapt your build to whatever the RNG throws at you. For example investing a point in Dark Gifts at least offsets the curses with beneficial effects some of the time. Not sure yet if and how much WIL I should invest further for this tree, I might decide to not go for CUN at all and maybe a bit less DEX than usual and/or not even max STR/CON. We'll see how it goes. Anyway: at least I unlocked the Necro now

siphal wrote:I had the same thing happen to me. Didnt see what changed at first until I noticed that drops suddenly started having the 'cursed' prefix. Checking my talents again I saw that I had gained Cursed/Fateful aura skill group with 1 point in Cursed Touch. Not sure if it's the same for you, there might be some random factor involved.

Because I play a fighter this is indeed a bit of a curse as I havent invested in Willpower which seems necessary to make the talents gain benefits to offsets its detrimental effects. On the other hand I now have an interesting different way to build my fighter. I love this kind of randomness in the game, it makes you adapt your build to whatever the RNG throws at you. For example investing a point in Dark Gifts at least offsets the curses with beneficial effects some of the time. Not sure yet if and how much WIL I should invest further for this tree, I might decide to not go for CUN at all and maybe a bit less DEX than usual and/or not even max STR/CON. We'll see how it goes. Anyway: at least I unlocked the Necro now

Did the exit from the graveyeard disappear for you too?

Yes, I just recalled. Just make sure you kill Celia for the unlock before you do though....

Tom wrote:Hello

In the graveyard I got cursed.
Im told to check my talents.
Can not see a thing except I have 'hate' and a number (9,6/14) below mana.

What happened to my character?

Tom

Oh, thx to another post I found it.
Never played with Curse before so I still need to get the grip of the Hate thing.

siphal wrote:Yes, I just recalled. Just make sure you kill Celia for the unlock before you do though....

I did kill her, but I did not get an unlock.
Maybe Ill get it when I find all the lore.

Tom

siphal wrote: Because I play a fighter this is indeed a bit of a curse as I havent invested in Willpower which seems necessary to make the talents gain benefits...

Those talents do not scale with Willpower, or with any stat.

Tom wrote:Never played with Curse before so I still need to get the grip of the Hate thing.

No need. You can ignore Hate entirely, as this tree doesn't use Hate. I have no idea why it even gives the resource bar.

Maybe Ill get it when I find all the lore.

Not with this character. You must do things in the proper order.

Fortress Library. Before killing her.

No need. You can ignore Hate entirely, as this tree doesn't use Hate. I have no idea why it even gives the resource bar.

The final skill in the tree uses hate.

greycat wrote:

siphal wrote: Because I play a fighter this is indeed a bit of a curse as I havent invested in Willpower which seems necessary to make the talents gain benefits...

Those talents do not scale with Willpower, or with any stat.

I know. But there *is* a WIL req. for getting the talents and/or raising their level. So it doesnt directly scale with WIL but the level of each talent does have effects, for instance the chance of the beneficial effect by Dark Gifts giving a major effect raises with talent level. And it's power too. At least that's what my talent info shows....

Anyway, not sure if it's worth sacrificing 'normal' stat-investments with a class that's not by nature a heavy WIL invester. It's still interesting to give it a try though.

Swapping in equipment sounds like the way to go.

Aye, in fact the talents themselves neatly synergize with that. Items blessed with "Gift of the will" are not uncommon. In fact, with a little bit of patience, I might be able to reach the 4th tier and/or highest talent levels with just a minor stat points investment.

Ofcourse, generic points management is another issue. Especially as I didnt plan ahead to be a Cursed Fighter Oh well, let's see how it goes, always fun to experiment with off-centre builds.

The same thing happened to me in b33 while I was exploring that area (I didn't know that it was about the necromancer unlock). My char got that cursed skill. It ruined my char, as I do not have generic talents to spare with that tree, so I just let him die and start over - it was sad because it happened after I cleaned the second tiers dungeons and was headed to Dreadfell.

That teach me to never get into that area again, as I don't want the unlock.

... does a <1/3rd chance of a (probably) minor negative effect (which is almost always ignorable) really ruin a character? Is it the extra weight? Is two generic points to get some benefits to go with it -- that'd all you'd need to start getting beneficial effects -- really that much of a sacrifice? That's the arena quest, and naught else.

I've been cursed, and played cursed, a fair bit. The cursed items've never seemed that bad

What about them is so terrible you'd suicide a character over it?

E: Tone, again, argh. Or possible misunderstanding, whatever. Not going, 'ahahaha, why-you-so-weak', or anything like that. Am genuinely curious as to what about the fateful aura tree would cause you to run a probably-20+ level character into the ground. Benli might be interested, too, because I don't think that's his intent for the tree.

Well, it might depend on the class/build one is using but so far I can agree that the curses are very minor indeed. In my case a lot of the time they mean nearly nothing (for a fighter maximum hate -1 , magic -x etc. is not an issue). And indeed, with only a very minor investment (it's just 1 generic even, for Dark Gifts) you get the chance of the cursed items being *better* than when you dont have the curse. And the option to invest more for even better chances and quality.

I would imagine that for classes that naturally invest heavily in WIL it may even be better. Main problem may be for classes with low STR as the extra weight may be an issue. But even then: I would imagine that the amount of cursed items that would end up as main or backup eq will rarely be more than 5 or so: +5 weight is not all that much for any class I would imagine.

But again: your mileage may vary.

Frumple wrote: E: Tone, again, argh. Or possible misunderstanding, whatever.

No, I think you've got the right tone here. Suiciding a char because OH MY GOD SOMETIMES MY HELMET HAS -2 CUN is ludicrous. Especially when ONE generic point invested would balance it out (his helmet would have -2 CUN but +2 WIL or something).