ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

An illusionist is a spellcaster who relies on tricks and deception to defeat enemies, instead of brute force. Illusionists confuse, charm and mislead its foes with various illusions, and finish them off with their staves. Experienced illusionists can even weave tactile illusions from shadows.

Primary stats: Magic and Cunning

talent trees:

cunning/survival = false, -0.1
spell/phantasm = true, 0.3
spell/misdirection = true, 0.3
spell/glamer = true, 0.3
spell/shadow-weaving = false, 0.3
spell/mentalism = true, 0.3
spell/divination = false, 0.1
spell/staff-combat = true, 0.3
spell/conveyance = true, 0.2
spell/parlor-magic = true, 0.3

Starting talents:

- Dazzling Lights
- Illuminate
- Prediction
- Channel Staff

New trees:

Misdirection

1. Dazzling Lights
A cone of intense lights spring forth from your hand, inflicting light damage. Any creatures struck must make a mental save or they will get dazed.

2. Transposition
Switch places with your target by lightly tapping them. The touch does no damage. Switching disorients the target, increasing your defense for several turns. The defense increase will scale with the cunning stat.

3. Mirror Image
Create a copy of yourself. The copy possesses your exact talents and stats, but it cannot deal any damage.

4. Invincible
Create an illusion of invincibility.

Mentalism

1. Prediction
Unnerve your opponents by predicting their next moves. When you avoid a melee blow the target loses its resolve, reducing their saving throws.

2. Traumatize
Peel away the veil of the target's mind, conjuring painful images and memories from the target's subconscious. Inflicts mind damage and stuns for 3 turns.

3. Mind Cage
Learn to resist hostile illusions. Improves mental saves and Willpower.

4. Terrifying Visage
Conjure a terrifying visage. The illusion is frighteningly real... so real that the target might die from fright. This effect does not work on elite or boss enemies.

Shadow Weaving

1. Eldritch Touch
An unearthly appendage emerges from the shadows and constricts a target. The tentacle deals real damage.

2. Shroud of Night
Blanket the area in darkness, blocking all light and teleporting you a short distance away. The darkness will increase with the Cunning stat.

3. Shadow Spider
Weave a spider out of shadows to harass your foes. The spider deals real damage.

4. Sphere of Insanity
Envelop the area in darkness. All who enter are driven temporarily mad, while protecting you from such effects.

Glamer

1. Charm
This spell makes the target regard you as its ally. You cannot control the charmed creature, and if you harm the target it will be freed from the effect.

2. Silent Casting
Learn to create illusions without making a sound. Increases silence immunity.

3. Mass Charm
This spell makes the a group of targets regard you as their ally. You cannot control the charmed creatures, and if you harm a target it will be freed from the effect.

4. Conflict
This spell causes a target to become violently insane, causing the target to attack others.

Parlor Magic

1. Alakazam
Reach into your hat and pull out bunnies. The bunnies are cute, but harmless. This trick requires a hat.

2. Hocus Pocus
Evoke an imaginary fireball from your weapon doing 0 fire damage, and knocking enemies back. This trick requires a main hand weapon.

3. Abracadabra
Evoke your amulet to use a special illusionist trick, regenerating your health. This trick requires an amulet. The regen increases with the Magic stat.

4. Presto Chango
Switch places with your enemies. This trick requires a cloak.

Compatibility: Low.

Please report any bugs you find!

Download it here:

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/illusionist-class

This class has a really, really, really hard time killing anything for at least the first few levels and probably after that as well. The only damaging spell it starts with is Channel Staff, which just doesn't cut it. Fighting random normal trolls is hard enough, much less bosses - if Norgos had had any sort of regeneration inscription, or if he had cornered me near the stairs, I don't think I would have been able to kill him. Add to that, all of spells cost way too much; compare Illuminate (5 mana, blind) to Dazzling Lights (30 mana, daze).

Basically these things are harder to start than Cursed, and probably don't have the tools to kill things late game. I may have to try a Cornac Illusionist and see if having Shadow Weaving unlocked at the beginning does anything about that.

EDIT: Perhaps some of the spells could do Mind damage with the caveat that they can't reduce enemies below a certain amount of HP?

Oops. I rebalanced most of the talents before posting the class, but I forgot to adjust the costs and cooldowns. Dazzling Lights used to deal light damage, but I set it to 0 because it didn't fit the theme.

Illusionists only have 4 attack spells and 2 of them have to be unlocked, which is intentional. It's suppose to be a difficult class, but I don't want it to be the hardest class.

Update (v2):

- Made Dazzling Lights deal damage again.
- Adjusted the costs and cooldowns of all talents.

Please try to always use superloads/hooks in addons, this way they can be compatible with others

Recent changes (v3):

- Reduced the cost and cooldown of several talents.
- Increased the cost of Shroud of Night.
- Increased the cost of Abracadabra.
- Renamed the perception tree.
- Moved Dazzling Lights and Prediction to different trees.
- Used hooks for some files.

EDIT:

Recent Changes (v4):

- Parlor Magic is now a generic tree.
- Switched some spells around.
- Renamed the Legerdemain tree.
- Reduced the cost and cooldown of Charm and Mass Charm.
- Charm replaces Prediction as a starting talent.
- Lowered Dazzling Light's damage.
- Added a new tree: Glamer.
- 4 new spells: Paranoia, Silent Casting, Revelation, and Mind Break.

EDIT #2:

Minor update (v5) - Illusionists start with a manasurge rune and mana regen again.

I finally got around to play-testing this class. I tested a level 1 and level 50 illusionist. The early game was still overly difficult. I don't mind it being hard, but trying to kill anything was tedious. The level 50 illusionist was very powerful. Almost as powerful as an Archmage.

Recent changes (v6):

- Replaced Charm with Dazzling Lights as a starting talent.
- Replaced Transposition with Prediction as a starting talent.
- Lowered the cost and cooldown of Dazzling Lights and Mirror Image.
- Increased Prediction's evasion.
- Changed Paranoia into Conflict.
- Changed Revelation into Traumatize.
- Removed the level limit from the Shadow weaving tree.

I added a description of the class to the OP. Anyway, I started playing this class. Here's my experience, so far:

Maya, the Cornac Illusionist (Roguelike)
http://te4.org/characters/11413/tome/fa ... 556ec865a1

Levels 1-10: I played this class like a summoner with a bunch of status effects. The early game is easy. I focused on maxing out all my direct damage options asap. Traumatize deals large mind damage, but it's unreliable, due to my low mindpower. I used my 1st category point to unlock the Shadow Weaving tree. And the 2nd point for the Conveyance tree.

Levels 11-20: The game is starting to get harder. I nearly died a few times. Enemies can destroy my shadow creatures now. I maxed out Shadow Spider and Eldritch Touch. And I plan on maxing out my mass disabling spells before reach Dreadfell.

Levels 21-30: I have a hard time dealing with the undead. My main staff (warding) deals cold damage, and my shadow creatures deal darkness damage. Both are commonly resisted by the undead. I have staves with arcane and light damage, but I like being stun immune.

The battle against the Master was brutally long. It seems that Conflict and Mass Charm doesn't work against most of his minions. I'll fix it later.

My battle plan was simple: lure his minions away, they die horribly, and use my shadow creatures to attack him when he's alone. If the Master has a bunch of mages around, then I abuse their AI into manathrusting him several times.

Afterward, I managed to beat the ambush. I used two invisibility runes, Mass Charm, and Conflict. It's very satisfying to make Ukruk's battalion destroy itself.

Edit: removed spoiler image

Recent changes (v7):

- Conveyance doesn't require a category point anymore.
- Divinations is now locked.
- Fixed Conflict. It works on undead now.
- Increased the strength and accuracy of eldritch tentacle.
- Shadow Spider is now magic-based. And its talents are (slightly) different.
- Gave shadow spider and eldritch tentacle some status immunities.
- Increased the cooldown of Shadow Spider and Eldritch Touch by 5.
- Increased the cooldown of Invincible by 10.
- Nerfed Traumatize's damage, added stun.
- Made Mirror Image a bit more useful.
- Clarified several talent descriptions.

Recent changes (v8):

- Increased the damage of Traumatize. It doesn't need a nerf.
- Shadow spider's magic increases with cunning for consistency.
- Renamed Mind Break to Terrifying Visage. It has a slightly different effect.
- Lowered Divination mastery from 1.10 to 1.00.
- Doubled the cooldown and cost of Mirror Image.
- Invincible was overhauled. Now, it's a sustain and it drains a lot of mana and lowers your global speed while active.
- Abracadabra was changed to a regen effect. Increased cooldown by 6.
- Increased the cooldowns of Eldritch Touch and Shadow Spider by 5.
- Increased the cooldown of Presto Chango by 5.
- The talent icons are finished.

Recent changes (v9):

- Updated for B40.
- Terrifying Visage now prevents the target from moving.
- Fixed Abracadabra's regen. Increased the cooldown by 4.
- Silent Casting's resistance was reduced from 20% per talent level to 15%.
- Several other minor changes.

I played this class up to level 20 and couldnt get past the master, but here are my impressions:

Very nice! I thoroughly enjoyed this class, it has a very distinct feel and playstyle, and is very well thought out and put together. I would actually like to see this become a core class with some rebalancing.

1. I noticed a distinct lack of sustains, outside the core ones like from divination tree. I would suggest:

Make prediction into a sustain, and lower the evasion rate to between 10 and 20% with the same effect. After the first few levels I found myself rarely using this, because I didnt want to waste a turn on it when I had so many other great tools at my disposal.

2. I found myself flooded with generics at times, to the point I pumped Con and invested in thick skin.

I would say have divination unlocked from the start, after all, thats kind of the bread and butter of tricksters, doing cystal ball and tarot card divinations. Its not a strong enough tree for myself to spend a Cat point on, but having it as an option to throw a few extra points in here and there would be nice.

Having only 3 real damage spells is one of the points of this char, however those 3 are REALLY powerful, especially 5/5 illumination. I would raise the cost if possible on some of them, because with the lack of sustains I had a huge mana pool at all times and in most situations didnt even come close to having to use my manasurge rune.

It seems kind of funny that Charm would work on undead.
Also maybe make a note that you cant charm pets? Master murdered me mostly because I realized I can charm all undead, EXCEPT his summonded pets.

All in all it was a blast and I really enjoyed playing it, would love to see it become a core or work continued on.

Also maybe give different descriptions on the pets, until I read your post above about changing spider to magic and changing some talents, I had no idea where it fit in and would summon it whenever. I noticed the spider likes to back away from melee a lot, but it seems to rarely cast its blight spell. Still havent figured out a good use for spider other than to draw attention away from me.

Thank you for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the class.

Sradac wrote: 1. I noticed a distinct lack of sustains, outside the core ones like from divination tree. I would suggest:

Make prediction into a sustain, and lower the evasion rate to between 10 and 20% with the same effect. After the first few levels I found myself rarely using this, because I didnt want to waste a turn on it when I had so many other great tools at my disposal.

Making Prediction a sustain would make it similar to Blur Sight, except better. I could make Prediction an instant-cast talent.

2. I found myself flooded with generics at times, to the point I pumped Con and invested in thick skin.

I would say have divination unlocked from the start, after all, thats kind of the bread and butter of tricksters, doing cystal ball and tarot card divinations. Its not a strong enough tree for myself to spend a Cat point on, but having it as an option to throw a few extra points in here and there would be nice.

In the beginning, divination was unlocked and conveyance was locked. This class had trouble dealing any damage in the past, so conveyance was unlocked solely for Displacement Shield. I'll lock conveyance again and unlock divination. This class already has a few teleport talents.

Having only 3 real damage spells is one of the points of this char, however those 3 are REALLY powerful, especially 5/5 illumination. I would raise the cost if possible on some of them, because with the lack of sustains I had a huge mana pool at all times and in most situations didnt even come close to having to use my manasurge rune.

This class is suppose to have 2 direct damage spells, but recently illumination started dealing damage at level 4. I'll rebalance the spells.

It seems kind of funny that Charm would work on undead.
Also maybe make a note that you cant charm pets? Master murdered me mostly because I realized I can charm all undead, EXCEPT his summonded pets.

All in all it was a blast and I really enjoyed playing it, would love to see it become a core or work continued on.

Charm and Mass Charm won't work on mindless creatures in the future. I'll note that summoned creatures can't be charmed in the descriptions.

Sradac wrote:Also maybe give different descriptions on the pets, until I read your post above about changing spider to magic and changing some talents, I had no idea where it fit in and would summon it whenever. I noticed the spider likes to back away from melee a lot, but it seems to rarely cast its blight spell. Still havent figured out a good use for spider other than to draw attention away from me.

Shadow spider has spit blight and lay web ("searches the ground"), and both talents have cooldowns. A maxed out spider can only use its talents twice before disappearing. And lay web is mostly useless. I'll give the spider another talent.

I just downloaded this and gave the talents a quick glance (haven't had the chance to play it yet).

But my initial impression is that its really polished for the most part It's nice to see complete talent descriptions for instance.

That said I find the split between mindpower and spellpower questionable. It's like the class is a hybrid psi/mage that only uses mana. I understand it but with in the mechanics of the game it feels off.

Note that resist checks don't have to conform to how the attack is called. For instance you can do check hit spellpower vs. mental resist and probably should for many of your effects. Generally speaking, the effect source determines the attack check (accuracy, physical power, mind power, or spell power) and the effect type (physical, mental, or magical) determines the resist check. For example, you use spellpower to apply the power of say Tidal Wave, but knockback is a physical effect, so you resist it with a physical save. Likewise Daunting Presence is applied through physical power (because you're just so tough) and resisted with mental resist (because being intimidated is mental). The philosophy above should be adhered to in my opinion, for damage and what not as well (a spell calling mindcrit and mind damage is just weird to me).

I guess what I'm saying is the class has an identity crisis. It's written as a pure mage but it's really coded as a hybrid. One or the other would be fine but things should line up. If it's a mage it should be coded as such, if it's a hybrid then some of these effects should be moved to Psi.

My nitpicking aside, keep up the good work I look forward to giving the class a test drive.

I concur, you might want to take a look at Grey's old thread on an Illusionist idea too