The Many (WIP)

[Red]

The Many will be a class who focuses on massive variety and a new kind of tactics in ToME-full party strategy. The core concept of the class is that for each Many type you have unlocked, you have one body available to you. Each body has a different focus-one is a warrior, one is a mage, etc. etc., though each is much weaker than other classes by themselves. Finally, it will have an ability "Plan" that lets you plan out each turn for EVERY body of The Many, so you don't rely on AI for your entire class.

Each body can be considered equivalent to an alchemist's golem, an actor significantly weaker than a normal player character but still useful. They will have limited equipment slots, class points, generic points, and stat points. The actual player character will be a controller entity, which is undetectable and invulnerable. However, the controller also can take no direct action on anything other than on bodies. Whenever a body dies, it is added to a total tally of body deaths. When this tally reaches above the maximum number of bodies you can summon, you die. (Note: You cannot regain lives by earning additional summons, even if this lowers your number of deaths below your summoning limit.)

The Many uses resources from bodies to activate abilities.

Class Categories (resource used by bodies in this category):
The Many/Body (stamina)
The Many/Nature (equilibrium)
The Many/Hatred (hate)
The Many/Arcane (mana)
The Many/Circadian (positive and negative energy)
The Many/Mind (psi)
The Many/Blood (vim)
The Many/Time (paradox)

Generic Categories:
The Many/The One-designed for focusing power on a single kind of body and using that above all else
The Many/The Hegemony-designed to augment diverse builds, allowing greater synergy between classes

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This class is still a work in progress. Any suggestions, advice, criticism, or anything else helpful will be enormously appreciated.
If anyone who can code well is especially intrigued by this class, please contact me through a PM. I am a very inexperienced coder and will welcome any and all help.

Thank you to everyone who offers help.

[Red]

Thoughts for abilities:

Class

Body
First: Allows use of 1-3 warrior bodies and gives improvements to stats.
Second: Unlocks archery for stamina bodies and gives further stat improvements.
Third: Active ability, puts stamina bodies in a defensive combat stance, significantly increasing their defensive stats at the cost of some offensive power.
Fourth: Active ability, swaps the location of any two stamina bodies, range increases with level. At level 3, can swap any three stamina bodies.

Nature
First: Allows summoning 1-3 wyrmic bodies and gives minor improvements to stats.
Second: Unlocks a support tree for equilibrium bodies and gives further stat improvements.
Third: Active ability, gives a powerful regen effect to 1-3 equilibrium bodies. At level 3, it also restores equilibrium.
Fourth: Active ability, allows each equilirium body to temporarily use some summoning skills.

Hatred
First: Allows summoning 1-3 cursed bodies and gives minor improvements to stats.
Second: Unlocks Darkness tree for hate bodies and gives further stat improvements.
Third: Active ability, puts hate bodies in a beserker rage.
Fourth: Active ability, causes each hate body to fill an enemy with enough antagonism to all that they will attack the nearest person, friend or foe, while their hate lasts.

Arcane
First: Allows summoning 1-3 mage bodies and gives minor improvements to stats.
Second: Unlocks advanced elemental categories for mage bodies and gives further stat improvements.
Third: ?
Fourth: ?

Circadian
First: Allows summoning 1-3 bodies and gives minor improvements to stats.
Second: ?
Third: ?
Fourth: ?

Mind
First: Allows summoning 1-3 Mindslayer bodies and gives minor improvements to stats.
Second: ?
Third: ?
Fourth: ?

Blood
First: Allows summoning 1-3 Reaver bodies and gives minor improvements to stats.
Second: ?
Third: ?
Fourth: ?

Time
First: Allows summoning 1-3 Temporal Warden bodies and gives minor improvements to stats.
Second: ?
Third: ?
Fourth: ?

Generic

The One
First: Active ability, lets you temporarily sacrifice a body to power another. Sacrificed bodies return without penalty after 100 turns spent resting, but do not count as alive for pruposes of the main controller staying alive.
Second: Upon choosing this ability, pick one favored and two disfavored categories. The disfavored categories are removed from your class list and the favored category receives extra stat, class, and generic points. This ability also slightly reduces the amount of stat, class, and generic points gained by non favored categories.
Third: Active ability, allows you to sacrifice 3-1 bodies from a non favored category to summon one extra body from the favored category at 75-125% power. The bodies sacrificed by this ability are considered killed and are not merely temporarily banished as in the first ability. (Note: Due to changes in how summoned bodies work, this ability needs reworking.)
Fourth: Pick two more disfavored categories. Your favored category now receives .05-.25 extra mastery. All non favored abilities suffer from -.05 mastery.

The Hegemony
First: Increases stats for all bodies based on proximity to other bodies. Increased stats are based on type of body, e.g. warrior bodies grant strength, mage bodies grant magic, etc.
Second: Sustained ability, lets your bodies shield one another. If one body would take a fatal blow while within 1-3 turn(s) movement speed of another body that can survive the attack, the stronger body will take the place of the weaker one. At level 5, bodies can now activate defensive abilities instantly as well as replace bodies.
Third: Makes all bodies not die until reaching (-.1*number of bodies*average body HP) hit points.
Fourth: Sustained ability, increases the number of targets an active class ability can choose by 1-5, as well as increasing the cost by 1-3. It also passively allows you to target any body with any ability, without restirctions based on the kind of body it is.

There are many classes I've barely played as and therefore am not sure what to have for their abilities. In addition, if anyone thinks they see an inherent balance issue in any ability, please let me know. Thank you all for any support.

[Razakai]

You should check back through addon history. I've seen a (small) number of addons in the past use 'parties' or multiple characters, albeit differently to yours. In particular the 'Plan' talent is going to be tricky to code, though I imagine the 'force use talent' function would work.

I'm not sure about giving each one full equipment. Even for a single character it can be a pain to get a good equipment set, when you have up to 8 'characters' it'll mean your gear will be spread very thin. Personally, I'd pick a stat focus for a 'primary' body and have it work off that. This strikes me as a pseudo-summoner class, so perhaps Wil/Cun/Mindpower. Then have one of your generic categories do stuff like 'Increases Magic for your mana-body by %d of your Will' and so on, perhaps in the Hegemony category. You can then allow each secondary body to have a more limited inventory, maybe just a weapon/armor similar to Golem. This strikes a balance between having to collect dozens of bits of equipment while still letting your stamina-body use an interesting weapon for example.

Nonetheless, this is a very interesting if difficult concept so I wish you luck. Remember to post in the Development forum for coding solutions.

[Red]

Thank you for your input. I was actually doing some thinking today and actually thought it might be easier to set it up as each body being a golem analogue-its own independent class points, stat points, generic points, etc. The main "body" would be an invisible, undetectable, invulnerable controller entity until all the bodies are killed, at which time you'll have somewhere around one hitpoint and no defenses. Have fun running away.

That being said, I do think a serious cost needs to be present for ressurecting bodies. You called this a "pseudo-summoner" class, but I feel that each body needs to be a major part of you. Any ideas for something more than the slap-on-the-wrist alchemist gems cost for golems?

[grayswandir]

If you have n bodies, when one dies you lose 1/n lives?

[Red]

That is brilliant, I think. Grayswandir, thank you very much.

[Razakai]

I'd recommend combining the positive/negative energy body, as that's how it works for Anorithil. They can act as a 'support' body with Light/Circles taking up Positive, and Negative being used for some ranged damage.