ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Niche:
Utilize magic sigils for offensive, defensive and augmentation purposes.

Stat Breakdown wrote: Strength
Not used currently.
Dexterity
Not used currently.
Constitution
Not used currently.
Magic
Prerequisite for talents.
Majority of scaling.
Willpower
Not used currently.
Cunning
Not used currently.

Sigilist / Sigil Command wrote:

Talent tree.
Control over your sigils, to promote usability.

Sigil Command / Control wrote: Your mastery of Sigils prevents saturation.
Points in this skill also increase your mastery of all Sigilist skills by .2, up to 1.

Sigil Command / Overcharge wrote: Sustain Cooldown: 20
sigils activated while Overcharge is sustained have 2...5 times the power, but a 4...2 times longer cooldown.
While Overcharge is sustained, you lose mana at 10...30 per turn.

Sigil Command / Grr...:( wrote: If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Sigil Command / Runic Supremacy wrote: Passive
You are 20...100% resistant to Silence.

Sigilist / Sigil of Protection wrote:

Generic Tree
Power and maintain a shield, eventually turning it against your enemies even as it protects you from harm.

RoP / Shield wrote: Sustain Cooldown: 50...25
Call upon your sigil of shielding to block up to 150...1500 damage before deactivating.

RoP / Recoil wrote: Passive
Enemies within 3...10 squares take 15...75% of the damage they deal to your Sigil of protection.

RoP / Failsafe wrote: Passive
If your sigil of Protection is destroyed or deactivated, you forge a shield with 20...80% power for 3...5 turns.

RoP / Repulsion wrote: Cooldown: 20...12
Expand your sigil of Protection to push away enemies. Pushes them 2...5 squares away.
At Talent Level 3, this damages enemies who resist.
At Talent Level 5, this damages all enemies affected, as if they received a melee attack at 100...250% power.

Sigilist / Sigil of Sensing wrote:

Generic Tree
General vision improvements, and eventually several telepathies.

***I can't tell if it's over or underpowered though***

RoS / Perception wrote: Sustain Cooldown: 15
Increases sight radius by 2...10.

RoS / Visionary wrote: Passive
Increases Blindness resistance by 34...100%.
Also increases your light radius by 1...5.
At Talent Level 5, the Blindness resistance works even if your sigil of Pereption is deactivated.

RoS / Blinding wrote: Cooldown: 20
Call upon your sigil of Perception to blind enemies in range 3...15. This will not blind you, but will affect allies.
At talent level 2, using this talent also illuminates the affected area.

RoS / Telepathy wrote: Active (instant) Cooldown: 8
Allows you to sense the specific creature subtype across the map.
At Talent level 2, this expands to the entire creature type.
Higher talent levels increase the number of creature types you can sense, up to 4.

Sigilist / Sigil of Mobility wrote:

Talent tree
Increase your mobility through the help of your Sigils, and steal the same from your enemy.

RoM / Blink wrote: Cooldown: 12...4
Blink to a target square in range 3...8.
This talent works on "no teleport" tiles.

***This talent may or may not be instant. Testing is needed***

RoM / Flashstep wrote: Passive
Blinking confuses your enemies for 2...4 turns.
At Talent Level 3, you also gain 5...25% all resist for 0...5 turns after blinking.

***This talent may allow a free action after blinking***

RoM / Standstill wrote: Cooldown: 22...10
Enemies within range 4...8 cannot teleport for 5...10 turns.
At Talent level 3, enemies are slowed (25%) for 1...5 turns.
At Talent Level 5, enemies are completely immobilized for 1...5 turns, before being slowed.

RoM / Kinetics wrote: Passive
While your Sigil of Mobility is active, you gain 10...50% attack speed.
At Talent Level 3, you also gain 5...25% global speed.

***Hopefully this helps with the Sigil of Destruction's "Augmentation" ability, allowing more damage faster***

Sigilist / Sigil of Destruction wrote:

Talent tree.
Empower yourself with your Sigil of Destruction, slaying those in your path.

RoD / Sigil of Destruction wrote: Cooldown: 10...5
Project a bolt of raw mana from your sigil of Destruction, dealing 50...300 damage (Arcane) to a single target.
The projectile will pass through any target at Talent Level 3.

RoD / Wave of Destruction wrote: Cooldown: 25
Call forth a wave from your sigil of Destruction, dealing 100...400 damage (Arcane) to all targets in a cone of 2...5, and put your sigil of

Destruction on a reduced cooldown.

RoD / Spread of Destruction wrote: Passive
The bolt from your sigil of Destruction will seek 1...3 new targets after the first, and will not hit the same target twice. Each new target decreases

the damage by 25...10%.
Also grants you 10...50% Arcane resistance penetration.
At Talent Level 5, you can project a second bolt from your sigil of Destruction.

RoD / Augmentation wrote: Sustain Cooldown: 5
Divert the power from your sigil of Destruction, locking it, and augmenting your melee strikes with a 15...75% arcane damage bonus.
If you use Command Staff while this sustain is active, convert 50% of the damage to arcane, and increase the damage by 10...50%.

Sigilist / Sigil of Leeching wrote:

Locked Talent
Take the power of your enemies, and gobble it all up.

RoL / Leeching sigil wrote: Sustain Cooldown: 50
Convert 5...25% of all damage you take (and a further 5...25% of arcane damage) into a temporary damage boost.
At Talent Level 5, an attack that deals over 60% of your life resets the cooldown of all your sigils, but deactivates your Leeching sigil.

RoL / Parasitic sigil wrote: Cooldown: 15
Inscribe a parasitic sigil into your enemy, up to range 3...9, that drains the lower of 3...15% (or 20...100 points) of their life every turn.
At Talent Level 3, this also drains an additional 5% (or 50 points), converted to mana.
The enemy can save vs your Spellpower.

RoL / Also up for grabs. wrote: Anyone have an idea? I can only have so many...

RoL / Jinx wrote: Cooldown: 100
Target a single enemy, who gains the "Jinxed" effect.
An enemy with this effect will be given 15...75% of the damage intended for you, unless they are the direct source. This effect is magic, can be saved

against, and lasts for 3...15 turns.
At Talent level 5 (and with Level 5 Runic Supremacy), if the target is killed by damage destined for the player, and was not more than twice its'

maximum life, this talent will be reset.

Sigilist / sigil of Endurance wrote:

Locked Generic
Withstand, and eventually grow stronger, from that which is inflicted upon you.

RoE / Undaunting wrote: Sustain Cooldown: 10
While active, only die when reaching -25...-125 life.
At Talent Level 5, your health can never drop more than 100% in one turn.

RoE / Resistance wrote: Passive
While your sigil of Endurance is active, you gain 6...30% all resist.

RoE / Affinity wrote: Passive
While your sigil of Endurance is active, you heal back 5...25% of all damage dealt to you.
At Talent level 3, you heal back an additional 5...25% of arcane damage.

RoE / Last Resort wrote: While your sigil of Endurance is active, if an attack would kill you, instead teleport away and have ALL your sigils deactivate, with all talents on

cooldown.
This talent does not reactivate until you slay your next Rare or higher enemy.

Hopefully this has addressed most of your concerns. If not, let me know.

looks pretty good but one thing you should keep in mind is that you really need to buff the power of runes.

inscriptions in general are made to give important things like recovery, protection, status recovery, mobility, escape, scouting basically stuff every character should have mechanically but not thematically, and that's why class specific options for these are always better.

insriptions are made to be just barely sufficient so that they can fill the gap for classes that don't have these vital ability's but wont eclipse classes that do.

so keeping in mind that infusions are made to be weak and the worst ones are those that don't fill vital gaps like offensive ones before they got status cure, and scouting/blinding so if you want this class to be good you really need to kick runes into high gear for them to be effective.

parasitic runes way too powerful though either have that drain scale down with rank or some other kind of debuff.

you seem to already be doing this pretty well though see a few things here that seem off

I'd suggest an ability that just reduces rune cooldown since these are your bread and butter skills now.

for recoil I'd suggest having it just give off a percentage of the shields power as damage once its broke or timed out as well as some retaliation damage for melee hits since most enemies won't do enough damage to get much power out of this as it is now.

okay for kinetics I don't quite get how this works all the mobility based inscriptions I can think of don't last long enough to really get much out of this how does this work

with the rune of destruction's cooldowns this class looks like a combo class rather than a rune based spell caster if this class doesn't get some kind of melee power I'd suggest gearing it for more spamability but it looks fine for a combo class.

yeah needs some work but looks good so far.

And here I worried I made them too strong.
High gear it is. If this gets off the ground, I can always tone it back down.

Flat reduction might make more sense than a snap-reset, yes...

What you said about Recoil, could you explain further. I'm not sure I fully understand your suggestion.

I suppose I could have elaborated further that most "Utility" runes were designed as Sustains, often with talents that provide benefits to them. But nothing is fixed, and if you have ideas, let them fly.

Good so far is what I want, but I can honestly say I am least satisfied with the Rune of Destruction.
Second-least would be the tier-3 for Runic Control.

Thank you for the critique.

okay for recoil I'm talking about the recoil talent in the shielding tree it deals a percentage of the damage your shield takes back to the attacker if their within range three.

my problem with that talent is that is that most foes don't deal enough damage to really take significant damage from this talent and those that do will mostly be casters who will just attack from outside the talents range so its not a very effective talent.

it would work better if its range was increased enough to hit most casters or if it was changed to deal a percentage of the damage it had taken in a radius once it either broke or timed out.

but yeah the current mechanic is really only useful against powerful melee enemies or mages you've chased down.

okay yeah the sustain bit makes a lot more sense.

also with reduced cooldown runic saturation will be more of an issue you should consider something to control it or make it beneficial such as increased power in addition to increased cooldown or maybe some kind of mild regeneration to help out the class recovery wise since.

and the rune bits look good but you'll need to decide if this is going to be a melee combo or caster class at some point

What stands out most to me is the mobility. As it stands in vanilla, Dimensional Step is arguably the best mobility talent in the game, or at the very least in the top tier; it's excellent for approach, for retreat, for repositioning, for pretty much anything you want a mobility talent to do. Its only significant drawbacks are shorter range than many similar talents, requiring LoS, and not functioning on no-teleport tiles. Rune of Blinking has all the advantages of Dimensional Step, but has much longer range, no mention of LoS, and possibly even works on no-teleport tiles. It doesn't even have an associated resource to worry about running out of or causing failures. And it confuses enemies with investment. It is far and away in every measurable aspect better than what is already among the best. The tree also contains a talent that stuns everything in a radius eight burst, which even Fireflash can't do.

Obviously that's not necessarily a condemnation because a) every class needs to stand out at something and b) I don't exactly have game design or balance cachet, it's just what my first reaction was. If anything, the class as a whole sounds like it would seriously struggle beyond tier one dungeons, given that it has one damaging tree, a handful of passive and retaliatory damaging talents, and nothing that juices up its bump attacks. Once you've used your offensive runes and your CD reset talents, you have nothing particularly compelling to fill your turns with so you're probably either doing mediocre melee damage or running away with your spiffy teleport to wait for your runes to come back. Either long, protracted fistfights or tedious hit-and-run battles of attrition. Neither sounds like much fun, but I also don't like playing bulwarks.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of cohesion to the class as a whole; every tree is doing something completely different from every other tree, and none of them seem to synergise in any particularly novel ways. It also diverges a lot from what existing runes do and how existing runes act, so lore- and flavorwise, you might want to alter it to be more in line with the existing mechanics and concepts of inscriptions or move it away from the idea of "runes" as in "those purple things we use now"; call the class a Sigilist and find-and-replace rune with sigil, or some similar cosmetic change, and it seems like it'd fit in a lot better. You also could not, of course. That doesn't really affect the function of the class at all.

Your core thematic concept is pretty obvious and defined. What's your core mechanical concept? What do you want this class to do, and how?

I love the idea!

astreoth wrote:okay for recoil I'm talking about the recoil talent in the shielding tree it deals a percentage of the damage your shield takes back to the attacker if their within range three.
my problem with that talent is that is that most foes don't deal enough damage to really take significant damage from this talent and those that do will mostly be casters who will just attack from outside the talents range so its not a very effective talent.
it would work better if its range was increased enough to hit most casters or if it was changed to deal a percentage of the damage it had taken in a radius once it either broke or timed out.

Those are pretty valid concerns... That makes one tree to rework. Based on what's to come, though, it'll be a small one in comparison.

astreoth wrote:but yeah the current mechanic is really only useful against powerful melee enemies or mages you've chased down.

We all know how annoying chasing down mages is. And while powerful melee enemies ARE a concern, not that much of one.

astreoth wrote:also with reduced cooldown runic saturation will be more of an issue you should consider something to control it or make it beneficial such as increased power in addition to increased cooldown or maybe some kind of mild regeneration to help out the class recovery wise since.
and the rune bits look good but you'll need to decide if this is going to be a melee combo or caster class at some point

I'll be considering, then. Thank you for elaborating.

FruitAndGarbage wrote:What stands out most to me is the mobility. As it stands in vanilla, Dimensional Step is arguably the best mobility talent in the game, or at the very least in the top tier; it's excellent for approach, for retreat, for repositioning, for pretty much anything you want a mobility talent to do. Its only significant drawbacks are shorter range than many similar talents, requiring LoS, and not functioning on no-teleport tiles.

I can agree with all of this. And if you had guessed that it was an inspiration, you'd be right on the money. Clearly I was... overzealous there.

FruitAndGarbage wrote:Rune of Blinking has all the advantages of Dimensional Step, but has much longer range, no mention of LoS, and possibly even works on no-teleport tiles. It doesn't even have an associated resource to worry about running out of or causing failures. And it confuses enemies with investment. It is far and away in every measurable aspect better than what is already among the best. The tree also contains a talent that stuns everything in a radius eight burst, which even Fireflash can't do.

So... too much? (I'll dial it back)

FruitAndGarbage wrote:Obviously that's not necessarily a condemnation because a) every class needs to stand out at something and b) I don't exactly have game design or balance cachet, it's just what my first reaction was. If anything, the class as a whole sounds like it would seriously struggle beyond tier one dungeons, given that it has one damaging tree, a handful of passive and retaliatory damaging talents, and nothing that juices up its bump attacks. Once you've used your offensive runes and your CD reset talents, you have nothing particularly compelling to fill your turns with so you're probably either doing mediocre melee damage or running away with your spiffy teleport to wait for your runes to come back. Either long, protracted fistfights or tedious hit-and-run battles of attrition. Neither sounds like much fun, but I also don't like playing bulwarks.

That is another concern that I conveniently looked over. I'll be redrafting that tree, too.

FruitAndGarbage wrote:There doesn't seem to be a lot of cohesion to the class as a whole; every tree is doing something completely different from every other tree, and none of them seem to synergise in any particularly novel ways.

My Shield rune and Manasurge rune never bothered to interact!
But yes, cohesion is important. And would help solidify the class. Those redrafts I talked about will hopefully reflect this.

FruitAndGarbage wrote:It also diverges a lot from what existing runes do and how existing runes act, so lore- and flavorwise, you might want to alter it to be more in line with the existing mechanics and concepts of inscriptions or move it away from the idea of "runes" as in "those purple things we use now"; call the class a Sigilist and find-and-replace rune with sigil, or some similar cosmetic change, and it seems like it'd fit in a lot better. You also could not, of course. That doesn't really affect the function of the class at all.

True. I like Sigils, though. Or perhaps hieroglyphs...

FruitAndGarbage wrote:Your core thematic concept is pretty obvious and defined. What's your core mechanical concept? What do you want this class to do, and how?

That's TWO people asking this. I'd better get cracking.

I hate double-posting, but here we are.

Revised the Sigil Command tree, the Sigil of Destruction tree, and the Sigil of Mobility tree.
Also revised some of the skills in the other trees. (descriptive, I know)

Attempted to make the class more viable when the bells and whistles were on cooldown.
Attempted to give the individual trees more synergy. Let me know if it worked.

Scrapped one skill, need two. Shoot out some ideas if you feel up to it.

Interesting class, I'd definitely give it a shot. While playing around on TOME and contemplating your idea, a few potential skills popped into mind:

Perhaps giving the class another tree based on offense, but have it more synergistic in nature

First skill could be a ranged nuke (range 7...10?) that:
a) triggers an offensive rune in targets talent list, copying it without changing targets (super hard to implement, I expect), or
b) functions like paradox mage's redux. Activate it (perhaps make it instant), allowing you to cast a specific rune (ideally offensive only, because otherwise potentially too overpowered) multiple times
c) deals damage, and reduces enemy resistances

Second skill could be a delayed nuke that:
a) requires a target to be hit by a rune/inscription before producing a high amounts of damage, and/or
b) reduces resistances until (and including, for calculation) the turn when nuke 'procs'

Third skill is eluding me currently

Fourth skill could be a rather long cooldown offensive tool, that:
a) Passive: Reduces the cooldown of runes/inscriptions (perhaps offensive only?) by X, and/or
b) Either uses the 'redux' copying effect if not used in the first skill, or amplifies it

As for a new skill for sigil command: I think the second or fourth skill might work. Alternatively, I have to give you an idea that I think would be absolutely awesome, but also potentially broken and terribly difficult to balance:

This skill would have two parts, either requiring two seperate (but interrelated) abilities, ala the Anorithil portal:
a) First, using the skill would purge a target of 1...4 of their current beneficial effects
b) Second, using the skill again would apply these beneficial effects to you

For balance, purging would need to 'overwrite' the saved buffs, so as to reduce the potentially utility it provides in that respect alone. Alternatively, the purging could be removed, and the effects could always be straight up copied.

This would be a bit like 'distilling' and then 'bottling' an enemies abilities as a sort of infusion, allowing you to save a key buff (Phantasmal Shield, Blurred Mortality, Blur Sight from say a vampire) for a key time (rampaging boss in your face). There are issues with this skill though. First and foremost, it seems a conceptual pita to code, a lot of the time it'll be mostly useless, and some of the time it might be game-breakingly broken, so it might not be a very 'healthy' ability.

I like the thematic idea of a runemaster, but I definitely think you need to work it into runes as they already exist in the game. Sigils make me think more of things like the Anorthil's Glyph tree, something you would scribe on the ground, not on enemies and probably not (though possibly) on yourself. A class based on placing magical traps, augments, and the like on terrain could be interesting, but it doesn't seem to be what you're thinking.

As the class sounds now, a lot of the individual pieces sound overpowered, but the class as a whole still lacks a lot of punch.




Sigil command can potentially give +1 to ALL talent masteries for this class (or at least all core masteries)? That means a 5/5 investment would net you an effective level of 10-12, depending on the initial mastery! Enemies with single talents that high can be devastating, due to scaling in the game. I don't want to think about an entire class with ALL it's talents that high! One of the costs of Overcharge (mana each turn) doesn't even seem to be an important resource for this class, from what you're describing. If it is, say so and mark willpower as a secondary stat for resources. If not, what's the point? And 100% silence resistance for a caster class is awesome. Ok, that's not overpowered, per se, but still really powerful.

Sigil of protection seems really powerful to me, as well. 1500 HP is more than most of my level 50 characters had, including several who were melee-focused. And even more, should it ever fail, another talent gives you a SECOND temporary shield automatically? And also, what's to stop me from putting it on Use When Enemy In Sight, or even Use When Able and just deactivating it after every battle to reset it? And as if that weren't enough, you can deal both reflective damage AND activated damage with it? Time Shield is currently the best damage shield spell in the game, but this one takes it to town and walks away with it's money.

Perception: potential sight radius of 20? Will any talents hit that far? If so, massively OP. If not... less so. Blinding, unfortunately, is more of a meh. It's a great status effect, probably the best one in the game, but many of the most powerful creatures in the game, including most late-game bosses, are flat out immune to it. As for telepathy, would you select the type(s) from a list, or target a creature to use that creature's type? If the former, that'll be a loooooong list. If the latter, it'd be pretty situational.

Blink: This is OP if interpreted in the most unlimited fashion. May I suggest making it like a cross between phase door/teleportation and wormhole? My idea is that, when you cast it, you can target either yourself or another tile. If you target another tile (maybe in a very limited range), you scribe the rune/sigil/whatever on the ground there, and the talent goes into sustain. Upon deactivating it, you are teleported back to that tile, even in no-teleport zones. If you target yourself, however, it teleports you instantly and randomly to a tile in range X (decide how large for yourself). Further down on that tree, the Kinetics spell confuses me. What's the Sigil of Mobility, other than the tree itself. It looks like you had intended the first talent to be a sustained Sigil like the other trees, but it's not now.

For Sigil of Destruction, would Spread of Destruction remake Sigil of Destruction from a bolt/beam talent to a forking talent like Chain Lightning, or would you still fire a piercing bolt (i.e. a beam) that split off secondary beams at every enemy hit? The first is interesting, but the second sounds really cool. Two at once may be OP, though. I like the Augmentation idea, but it seems kind of alone and by itself at the moment. Might I suggest a melee-oriented sigil tree, maybe locked by default, so characters could choose between a melee Runemaster and a ranged one?

The parasitic tree looks mildly interesting, all in all, but Jinx looks especially so. Mechanically, this would be useful against powerful enemies that have other enemies nearby, either minions or just random spawns. Especially a high-HP enemy. If you use this on the boss himself, then all his damage is getting through, while if you use it against a low-HP nobody, they won't last long enough for you to benefit from it. Cast it on a tough minion of a hard-hitting caster, though, and you're golden. Then again, how often does that happen? Also, does it convert the damage into arcane, or preserve it as-is? If as-is, then things like drakes that have minions 100% resistant to their damage provide a permanent damage sink. All-in-all, quite situational.

Undaunting: I think you mean Undaunted. To daunt is to make something afraid of you, so if something is undaunting, that means it's NOT making anything afraid of it. While something is undaunt-ED when nothing has made it afraid. Aside from that, looks a lot like Blurred Life. The later buffs are another matter, though. +30% resist all is REALLY powerful. By itself, that'd make Undaut-whatever a great skill. +25% damage AFFINITY ALL, however, puts this over the top, down the other side, and into the next county. Damage affinity to a single damage type is rare (I can only think of a handful of artifacts and one talent that give it) and often limited to 10-20%. I think the restored Staff of Talos gives +25% affinity to maybe 4 damage types. That's a tier 5 staff that also requires a cunning-based prodigy AND two tier 5 drops, one quite rare. And it can't be put into the item vault. To give this class a sustained +25% damage affinity ALL makes that look cheap. And then you go and make it even more powerful for arcane damage.






So, all in all, that's two MASSIVELY powerful shields (the Sigil of Protection and the Sigil of Endurance), two potentially interesting offensive abilities, and an awesome teleport, but all in all only two defensive sustains, four offensive talents (counting the shield's damage talent, but not the damage reflection), one (admittedly low cooldown) movement talent and one sensing talent. All in all, that's not much.

Making a tree that ties to and boosts the existing runes in the game, or maybe several different trees (one for protecting shields and effects, one for destructive elements, one for Vision, one for movement runes, and maybe one that makes manasurge heal and/or benefit you in another way) seems much more reliable, but would also probably require a talent that gives you more infusion slots.

Oh, and also, basing it on only one stat and, presumably, no resources means an incredibly simplistic stat building and little worry other than cooldowns (which is currently a huge concern given the very limited number of activated talents). I'd suggest, at minimum, making Cunning a secondary stat, either making it a stat requirement for some trees (maybe movement, leeching, and endurance?) and/or making it a powerful secondary scaling stat. Cunning makes sense to me for scribing sigils or manipulating the runes that everyone has access to for greater power than anyone could imagine. If you settle down on scribing sigils, dexterity could also make sense.

I think dex/cun secondaries are a good idea. They could inscribe runes on their FISTS and get procs on crits. Sort of make them a brawler-ish hybrid.

I wouldn't do the immunities up 100% but more to 75-80% at 5/5, so it's still nice to find some immunity gear, but you're more flexible and going 5/5 is less of a no-brainer. Then I'd also put the silence immunity on the 1st talent, not the last, because the mastery bonus is probably OP and difficult to balance.

I think it might be cool to have lots of anorithil glyph-like circles with this class that have awesome looking rune circle graphics.

For example, Sigil of Leeching 3rd talent could be Sigil of Exploitation: Inscribe a circle of radius X in range X. For X rounds, every time an enemy inside the circle uses a talent, the cooldown of one of your talents is reduced by (enemy's rank). Every time you take damage while standing inside the circle, you get a 1 round spellcasting speed bonus equal to the percentage of life you lost.

So... Where to start?
Thank you, Planetus, for that complete dissection. I have even more work to do than I thought.
The one that stood out most, and couldn't be chalked up to "I haven't tried it at all yet", is Overcharge. I started drawing the class up one way, and by the end of that tree it had changed directions. So...

Also, jotwebe, thank you. That's a less... Thorough analysis of what I'm not doing well enough here.
Magic, Cunning and Dexterity could work. I think I'll be making it with that in mind, first.

I'm not opposed to them binding glyphs on the ground, themselves, other enemies, whatever we want at this point. But making them awesome is far beyond my (very, very, very) limited ability.

Also, anyone that wants a progress report: I'd say we sit at... -20%. Give or take.

Lol, I hope I didn't discourage you at all. I think the idea is really cool, just really rough and unfocused at the moment.

well...you could always make a new Runemaster ToME2 style. I want to be able to create my own spells again.

Combine a Shield Rune and a Heat beam rune? Fire shield like Mindslayers had!

Combine Acid Wave rune with Teleportation? Temporal Wake style effect where everything around you is teleported away!

Combine a Phase Door rune with Frozen Spear rune? Uh...wormhole?

Combine Acid Wave and Heat Beam? Fire flash type AE!

Or instead of relying on in-game runes, create your own "sigil" talents for all the different effects.

"Shaping" tree:
1. Bolt with Range that increases with investment. At level 5 it becomes a targetable effect like sunspear.
2. Beam with range that increases. At level 5 you get...2 beams? Or the option to do a spinning beam trap?
3. Cone with range that increases. At level 5 the Cone can start at a remote location
4. Ball with area that increases.

"Elemental" tree:
1. Fire
2. Lightning
3. Cold
4. Physical

"Location" tree: Where you want to target this
1. Melee range. Can only point things in the cardinal directions
2. Self. Target yourself.
3. Any location
4. ...???

A young Sigilist can only combine 2 effects. So I activate my "Lightning" talent (0 turns) and the next talent I active uses up my turn and does the effect. So I use "Lightning" then use "Cone" and I get a burst of lightning to my chosen direction.

Give them a locked tree that among other things, allows them to combine more effects. So then I can combine "Fire", "self", and "Ball" to make a blastwave type effect that does fire damage to everything AROUND me, but not TO me.

That sounds really cool, Sradac. I would honestly love to be the author of that.

Seeing as any code I tamper with falls apart, though, it might take a while.

And for Planetus, you didn't discourage me. In fact, criticisms like that are encouraging. Now all I need is to get something together.