Fallen Race

[grayswandir]

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/grayswandir-fallen

Here is a race I quickly cobbled together in a couple of hours. I have no idea how balanced it is, so let me know. Feedback is appreciated.

The Fallen
The Higher were not the Conclave's first attempt at infusing humans with magic, but rather the result of long years of failed creations. The descendants of those who managed to survive these experiments are today called the Fallen. Although they command intense magical power, their bodies are weak and sickly.
-1 Strength, +0 Dexterity, -2 Constitution
+5 Magic, -1 Willpower, +0 Cunning
Life per level: 9
Experience penalty: -5%

Talents:
Intuitive Magic
Magic permeates everything you do. Though it takes its toll on your body, you intuitively use it to bolster your mundane actions. Whenever you deal damage, you have a [15-50]% chance of dealing extra arcane damage equal to 40% of the original hit.

The first talent point invested will reduce your healing modifier by 20% and all your saves by 10.

Arcane Energy
Though it leaves their body weak, the Fallen can make use of the arcane energy within them to power all their actions.

Whenever you recover health, you regain resources equal to a percentage of the healing (before healmod):
- +[15-50]% Mana
- All other resources (but life and souls) at a relative weight.

The first talent point invested will reduce your healing modifier by 20% and all your saves by 10.

Arcane Luck
The strong magical energies which the Fallen possess warp reality to their favor. Increases critical chance by [3-20]%, critical strike power by [9-50]%, and overall Luck by [3-10].

The first talent point invested will reduce your healing modifier by 20% and all your saves by 10.

Overwhelming Magic
The most sickly of the Fallen have truely overwhelming power. You posses such great magical power that it's effects have begun to leak out, affecting those around you.

Whenever Intuitive Magic triggers, you have a [15-50]% chance to apply one of 3 status effects, with a +[0-30] bonus to [greater of mindpower and spellpower]. The effects will last for 8 turns and will stack with themselves up to [floor(2.5 + level/2)] times. You can apply at most one status effect per target per game turn.

Effects:
Sickness of the Fallen: -10% healing factor and -10 all saves.
Weight of the Fallen: -10% global speed and +35% fatigue.
Oppression of the Fallen: 10% talent failure chance.

The first talent point invested will reduce your healing modifier by 20% and all your saves by 10.

Other Notes
Antimagic characters will have all penalties halved, and the first talent will have its damage type changed to manaburn.

[malboro_urchin]

From the description, Arcane Energy seems more like something that'd allow me to consume a magical resource for healing that'd ignore healmod.

Balance-wise, I dunno. While the talents seem very strong, they have rather severe drawbacks. You might have gone too far into both extremes there.

Edit: Thematically, I love the idea that you can choose, based on generic point investment into the racial tree, just how Fallen you've become/been made.

Question: How did the Fallen miscreations survive in the first place, let alone procreate?

[StarKeep]

As a fan of Extremes, this looks quite interesting.
Once I play with em for a bit, I'll post some actual feedback.

[grayswandir]

So I've played a couple of games with them, and they don't seem too horribly broken, for the early game at least. Not seeing any crashes or anything, either.

I might try to make arcane energy's effects show up on your resource regen display at some point, instead of just silently increasing it.

Edit: Thematically, I love the idea that you can choose, based on generic point investment into the racial tree, just how Fallen you've become/been made.

Question: How did the Fallen miscreations survive in the first place, let alone procreate?

The general idea is that, as long as you're not actively making use of your magical power you stay (relatively) healthy. But if you actually want to use any of your magical power, it takes a huge toll on your body. And if you're going to go around swinging a sword at monsters, that power is going to come out whether you want it to or not.
So basically, the Fallen just faded back into the general populace. There's a slight social stigma attached to being from a Fallen family (having some Fallen blood), but nothing too bad. And every once in a while genetics contrive to produce someone who is almost as strongly Fallen as the originals - that'd be someone who is capable of using the third or fourth talent in the tree. But most people with Fallen blood just occasionally manifest some magic on accident while doing something very stressful - maybe a single point in the first talent. They're still not terribly healthy, though.


Again, feedback is appreciated.

[Sradac]

oh snap he's back!

Time for everyone to harass him about updating his old addons for current ToME.


Soooooooooooooooo

whenya gonna update Gardener and Monk? huh huh huh?

Does sound kinda cool though.

Reminds me of young teenagers finding out they are Mutants in X-Men. I can see it now...

*Young child gets into a fistfight in the yard because a bully demanded he handed over his Sweetroll. The child throws the sweetroll into the air, then goes to punch the bully in the face before he runs. Unfortunately, in this moment of stress and puberty, when the child punches the bully his fist erupted with Arcane powers and almost melted the bullies face. The child then finds out the horrible truth...he is of Fallen descent. He is carted off to live out his days in the watchful eyes of the Templars in a tower far to the east, lest he becomes an Abomination*

Ok so at the end it got a bit Dragon-Agey there but still, i like the idea. There should be more chances for bad / undesirable things to happen.

[malboro_urchin]

I think having a 20% healmod is plenty bad, thank you very much.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

20% Pft. When you have 40% and -80 saves, come back to the pity club. Also, Fallen Doomed was my first character. Talk to me about pain after that.

Seems good, though I have a question on mechanics. Are the negative saves subtracted from your raw save amounts, or the adjusted values after tiering? (In other words, say my stats + equipment provide me with 60 save (raw), for 40 adjusted, and I invest in 2 talents. This gives me -40 save. Does this subtract from the former amount (leaving me with 20 adjusted saves) or from the adjusted amount (leaving me with 0 adjusted saves)? (If it doesn't subtract from raw, I'd suggest changing it.)

Finally, on that note, can you make us see how far our (raw) saves are in the negatives in some way? So we can more easily determine how far we are from potentially counteracting the penalties we're suffering, and make better equipment choices?

Also, I retract my statements made to you in-game about making the racials spells. To quote Darkgod from IRC since it wasn't an active use of magic to accomplish the racials, it wouldn't be a spell.

[Doctornull]

This seems like a really interesting set of mechanics, but I wonder if it's more suitable for a class than a race. The heal-reduction breakpoints kind of remind me of Solipsism.

My guess is that this might work best with an Arcane / Aether Archmage who relies on shields to just never take damage in the first place.

[Faeryan]

Fallen Defilers are crazy powerful. Vim regen has always been my weak point, but now with Fallen there's none if that anymore. Also diseases with 40% extra, suits me.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

This seems like a really interesting set of mechanics, but I wonder if it's more suitable for a class than a race. The heal-reduction breakpoints kind of remind me of Solipsism.

My guess is that this might work best with an Arcane / Aether Archmage who relies on shields to just never take damage in the first place.

Not really. There is good archmage synergy, but the resource gain on heal from the second racial just WRECKS disruption shield. They'd make better wildfire/storm mages. Especially storm. Mana on heal can turn into a great way to keep your sustains running.

[Doctornull]

Not really. There is good archmage synergy, but the resource gain on heal from the second racial just WRECKS disruption shield. They'd make better wildfire/storm mages. Especially storm. Mana on heal can turn into a great way to keep your sustains running.

Good point.

Huh, wonder how they'd do as an Anorithil.

[malboro_urchin]

Not really. There is good archmage synergy, but the resource gain on heal from the second racial just WRECKS disruption shield. They'd make better wildfire/storm mages. Especially storm. Mana on heal can turn into a great way to keep your sustains running.

Good point.

Huh, wonder how they'd do as an Anorithil.

I think they'd definitely make for an excellent, if glass-cannony Anorithil. A free, extra 20% damage from Intuitive Magic is pretty awesome by itself, but a 20% crit boost combined with an additional 50% crit damage? That'd make the midgame a cakewalk, were it not for the -60% healmod & -60 to saves you get from all those racials.

Having Celestial/Light is generally fantastic for survival. Barrier, alongside good shielding runes, are a must for staying alive, but Healing Light really gets neutered by those awesome offensive racials, except for the part where it also refunds even more positive than before, and more importantly, gives you negative on cast! Providence is something you want to have up for as long as possible, as having -60 to saves means you're susceptible to pretty much every condition under the sun.

I think, due to the massive healmod & saves reduction, that a Fallen Anorithil isn't really viable in tandem with Hymn of Moonlight. Yes, you output stupid amounts of Corona damage due to an insane midgame crit rate, but the immunities that Hymn of Perseverance grants you are crucial; you'd need both Hymn of Perseverance and gear with the appropriate immunities to make up for your lack of saves.

[grayswandir]

Seems good, though I have a question on mechanics. Are the negative saves subtracted from your raw save amounts, or the adjusted values after tiering? (In other words, say my stats + equipment provide me with 60 save (raw), for 40 adjusted, and I invest in 2 talents. This gives me -40 save. Does this subtract from the former amount (leaving me with 20 adjusted saves) or from the adjusted amount (leaving me with 0 adjusted saves)? (If it doesn't subtract from raw, I'd suggest changing it.)

They're raw saves.

Finally, on that note, can you make us see how far our (raw) saves are in the negatives in some way? So we can more easily determine how far we are from potentially counteracting the penalties we're suffering, and make better equipment choices?

The last time I tried to mess with the display, things exploded. I'll look into it, at least. Maybe I'll just hack it into the talent description.

The heal-reduction breakpoints kind of remind me of Solipsism.

That was the inspiration, yes.

[Zaive]

I've been trying to run an aether archmage, but I haven't managed to get far enough to see how well it works. I've been using it with nulltweaks though, and I believe that thick skin + arcane power + disruption shield storm arcane resist is enough to give me 100% arcane resistance during the storm, which makes the storm itself stupidly strong and with aether permeation very durable to everything else. Sounds good on paper, at least, though this isn't really reliant on Fallen talents.

I know this sounds silly, but couldn't you just not heal during disruption shield? Aether Avatar lets you use it right off the bat at full health, and you could manage yourself to heal again before using it off cooldown. Then again by the time it's off cooldown everything is probably dead if you have the crit and arcane damage boosts from that tree. >.>

Oh yeah, and I think the 40% arcane damage is calculated before taking enemy resists into account, meaning you can occasionally hurt fire immune baddies with a fire spell. Well, about 20% of a fire spell. Better than 0.


As for 4th skill ideas... I think it could be that the fallen has so much magic that he starts to screw up everything around him. Like an arcane focused version of gloom. Just being in it lowers healmod and saves, and then a fairly good chance for random magic effects. Silence, confuse, arcane vortex, time prison, phase door, spellshock... "Overwhelming magic" should have some pretty crazy effects.

Another idea is just a buff to the first skill. More damage in an explosion. Though if the explosion hitting something else could trigger the effect again that could be very bad or very awesome. Maybe give it extra effects depending on the points put into the 2nd and 3rd skills in the tree as well?

Should be a really strong skill either way since that -80% healmod is killer.

[Doctornull]

Just a reminder of our IRC conversation.

- Antimagic Fallen penalties halved, and Arcane damage becomes Manaburn.

- 4th talent might apply effects (10%-25% chance) when the 1st racial inflicts Arcane (or Manaburn) damage.
Effects: healmod reduction (or Healing Nexus), silence / daze / slow, save penalty (-40%, due to re-scaling that's not as bad as it sounds); for apply_power use max(spellpower, mindpower).

- Antimagic checks on learning Resolve and on Zigur quest complete.