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Dread Knight

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 2:14 pm
by Sradac
Grab it here: http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/dreadknight !
The addons current status? It loads. Thats all I wanted to do at the moment. Its "complete" in the sense that its a class with 16 total trees (I think 5 generic and 11 class?), stats, lore, etc. but I would like to build out some custom talents for it at some point. Initial play tests went well, this class has a lot of options for build. Got past alt trollmire and bill with no issues, but also wasnt stupidly OP, I think it should give some really interesting possibilities.

I'm thinking about maybe swapping shield offense and defense to give him some more defensive qualities. Basically im picturing someone who is in complete control of the field, at least as much as a knight can be. Part of that is high survivability, not being able to be taken down easily and the other part is debilitating your foes via fears, glooms, mind assaults, head cracks, and things like that. Shield offense will give them a bit more killing power earlier, but defense might keep them alive that much more. Will have to see how it goes.
New afflicted I'm putting together because Afflicted are just the best. A tale of emotions lost.

More tactically and battlefield focused than a Cursed.

Think Gabranth from Final Fantasy 12 meets Hannibal of Carthage.

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I think this class could be fun:

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		"The Dread Knight.  A truly Afflicted mind.  One would do well to fear the Dread Knight.  They were once ruthless commanders of armies.  They had no problem sending scores of their own men into guaranteed death if it meant even the slightest chance of victory",
		"Dread Knights had the cruelest, most uncaring military minds.  Outside of the battle field, they were just as fearsome.  They were the type of person who would abuse their servants, order their men to steal live stock, and burn down an entire tavern if any peasant so much as looked their way incorrectly.",
		"Perhaps it was one of those occurances that lead them to their fate.  Maybe it was a Witch who survived one of their village raids who Cursed them.",
		"Maybe it was a higher power, attempting to punish them for their wicked ways",
		"Or maybe their Humanity is just too far gone.  Whatever the cause, we know the effect.  All that is left is a husk of what was once a member of society, leaving the Dread Knight.  A cold, calculating, malicious person who is almost un-matched on the Battle Field.  They no longer command armies, instead they are employed by the most powerful of Lords to lead a small death squad.  When a Dread Knight enters the field, an aura of panic covers it.  You may not know it just by looking at this person, but you feel it.  Something underneath that Armor is...Evil.  Truly, heartlessly, Evil.  You tremble...you don't belong here.  This isn't where you die.  You have to run. Far.",
		"Their most important stats to rule the battlefield as a tyrant are Strength, Willpower, and Cunning",
		"#GOLD#Stat modifiers:",
		"#LIGHT_BLUE# * 3 Strength, +0 Dexterity, +2 Constitution",
		"#LIGHT_BLUE# * -2 Magic, +3 Willpower, 3 Cunning",
		"#GOLD# Life per level:#LIGHT_BLUE# +1",

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		["technique/combat-training"]={true, 0.3},
		["cursed/strife"]={true, 0.1},
		["technique/shield-defense"]={false, 0.1},
		["cursed/cruelty"]={true, 0.0},
		["technique/combat-techniques-active"]={true, 0.3},
		["technique/battle-tactics"]={false, 0.3},
		["technique/bloodthirst"]={false, 0.1},
		["technique/conditioning"]={true, 0.1},
		["technique/field-control"]={true, 0.0},
		["cunning/tactical"]={true, 0.3},
		["cunning/survival"]={false, 0.0},
		["cursed/cursed-form"]={true, 0.0},
		["cursed/gloom"]={true, 0.1},
		["cursed/fears"]={true, 0.3},
		["cursed/dark-sustenance"]={false, 0.0},
		["cursed/punishments"]={true, 0.1},
He's your ruthless, battlefield commander who has become even more terrifying with his affliction. As a former commander, he focused more on Shields because you don't want your commander to die. He also has knowledge of tactics and controlling the battlefield. Being a seasoned veteran, he's become conditioned and toughened.

He is cruel and truly enjoys slaughter on the field of battle, as such he has developed quite the bloodthirst.

Also, as the description states, he was always the "do whatever it takes to win" mind set as such he has Thuggery. I see the skullcrackin and confusion causing effects of Thuggery to be very fitting, both in a combat sense and in the fact that he was kind of a thug, raiding and pillaging if it would benefit his army.

The terrifying presence his affliction left upon him bestowed both Gloom as a passive mind-terror effect, the hate and fear seeps out from him in a terrifying aura. Any who would dare wander close to him literally feel his presence. But he also has Fears for when he wants to focus his attention on an unfortunate soul. He has 1.3 in Fears to make it actually semi-useful instead of the garbage it normally is.

He also has Punishments as a way to both give some mindpower offensive options, and to Punish the weak minded fodder on the battlefield that would dare try and stand up to an elite soldier such as himself.

Finally, if he so chooses, he has Dark Sustenance to feed upon the hate and fear within his opponents.

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 5:28 pm
by Sradac
Good News! It's available now! Check top post for link

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 3:17 pm
by Sradac
minor update, replaced Shield Offense with Strife. Felt a bit more fitting. Plus with fears and gloom and punishments, class has a lot of disabling effects early on.

I've also realized that this class can EASILY get over 100% stun resistance just from talents, so that's going to need to be tweaked. Will need to either replace thuggery completely, replace with a different generic, or give it some custom talents instead.

In the spirit of that, I've begun replacing thuggery with a custom tree based upon Cruelty and making your opponents not just fear you, but also to make them suffer.
Tried a custom Scoundrel tree, renaming and tweaking all the talents. Unfortunately lacerating strikes just does absolutely nothing if I rename it. Is there a timed_effect tied to it that I can't find? No errors, just does nothing at all

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newTalent{
	name = "Deep Wounds", short_name="DEEPWOUNDS",
	type = {"cursed/cruelty", 1},
	points = 5,
	require = cuns_req1,
	mode = "sustained",
	cutChance = function(self,t) return self:combatTalentLimit(t, 100, 20, 60) end, --Limit < 100%
	do_cut = function(self, t, target, dam)
		if target:canBe("cut") and rng.percent(t.cutChance(self, t)) then
			dam = dam * self:combatTalentWeaponDamage(t, 0.35, 0.60)
			target:setEffect(target.EFF_CUT, 10, {src=self, power=(dam / 10)})
		end
	end,
	activate = function(self, t)
		return {}
	end,
	deactivate = function(self, t)
		return true
	end,
	info = function(self, t)
		return ([[Cruelly slash deep wounds into your opponent, making sure to bleed them out before they die. All attacks now have a %d%% chance of inflicting an additional %d%% of your attack's damage in Bleeding damage, divided over ten turns.]]):
		format(t.cutChance(self, t), 100 * self:combatTalentWeaponDamage(t, 0.35, 0.60))
	end,
}

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 8:44 am
by Hogulus
Experimenting with this class now, and although I don't have much experience with the other Afflicted classes to know how it compares, I can tell it'll be great fun in crowded areas :) I'll keep playing with it, thanks for making it!

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 9:00 am
by StarKeep
It is handled in mod/class/interface/combat.lua, in attackTargetWith.

Line 790:

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if hitted and not target.dead and self:isTalentActive(self.T_LACERATING_STRIKES) then
	local t = self:getTalentFromId(self.T_LACERATING_STRIKES)
	t.do_cut(self, t, target, dam)
end

To be more precise in what it does, it checks to make sure the attack hits (hitted), confirms the target isn't dead (not target.dead), and makes sure the actor has the talent active (isTalentActive).

After this, it grabs the talent, assigns it to t, and than tells the talent to 'do_cut', which is assigned on the talent itself, by passing it the damage the weapon dealt (dam) and the target to apply it to (target).


In order to apply yours, it'd require a simple superload or hook into Combat.lua, on attackTargetWith, with a basically 100% copy of the Lacerating Strikes version, but with your talent's shortname instead.

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:45 pm
by Sradac
Hogulus wrote:Experimenting with this class now, and although I don't have much experience with the other Afflicted classes to know how it compares, I can tell it'll be great fun in crowded areas :) I'll keep playing with it, thanks for making it!
Heyo, great to hear! Like I said above it "works" although I'd really like to do some tweaking to the class to make it less "guardian meets cursed" and more "cursed meets tactical commander".

May even consider something similar to the Thought Forms where you can call weak soldiers to arms and send them to their doom. Maybe even have it so when they die, you generate Hate because, mwa hahaha look at those puny soliders dying, guess I need to do the real work!

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:43 pm
by Sradac
StarKeep wrote:It is handled in mod/class/interface/combat.lua, in attackTargetWith.

Line 790:

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if hitted and not target.dead and self:isTalentActive(self.T_LACERATING_STRIKES) then
	local t = self:getTalentFromId(self.T_LACERATING_STRIKES)
	t.do_cut(self, t, target, dam)
end

To be more precise in what it does, it checks to make sure the attack hits (hitted), confirms the target isn't dead (not target.dead), and makes sure the actor has the talent active (isTalentActive).

After this, it grabs the talent, assigns it to t, and than tells the talent to 'do_cut', which is assigned on the talent itself, by passing it the damage the weapon dealt (dam) and the target to apply it to (target).


In order to apply yours, it'd require a simple superload or hook into Combat.lua, on attackTargetWith, with a basically 100% copy of the Lacerating Strikes version, but with your talent's shortname instead.
Hmm. Maybe I'm still not doing something right. It's about the same as it was before, no errors, just nothing happening. Nothing showing up in the logs either about it trying to apply this effect or not:

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class:bindHook("Combat:attackTargetWith", function(self, data)
 if hitted and not target.dead and self:isTalentActive(self.T_DEEPWOUNDS) then
   local t = self:getTalentFromId(self.T_DEEPWOUNDS)
   t.do_cut(self, t, target, dam)
end
end)
I tried to replicate the way you were doing your hooks in arcanum's load.lua, but It just dosen't seem to function.

I've uploaded a new version of dreadknight with the new (non-functioning) tree if anyone feels generous enough to take a stab at looking at it.

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:49 am
by Sradac
added to steam, I think it's ready

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 6:21 am
by Sradac
updated everywhere, thanks to StarKeep for helping me getting the bleeding to actually work.

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:14 pm
by NemesisZeru
Hm, there's a talent I planned for another class that might work here:

Lance of Hatred(I called it Psilance in my class concept)
Sustain
Costs however much hate

Wrap your weapon(maybe just mindstar? Mindstar/shield is a combo nobody really does. Not sure how well it fits, though) in powerful energy, transforming it into a lance of hatred. The lance can strike targets behind the main target, and does X mind damage a hit(Possibly gain a small amount of hate on hit, too?)

I kinda feel like it'd fit the image of a battlefield general, I just dunno where such a thing would go. I know offering ideas isn't much, but Dread knight seems like a cool idea, and I want to support it in any way I can. :3

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:52 pm
by Hogulus
This might be a crazy idea, but an ability that lets the Dread Knight turn the area into his fond memories of carnage, creating a fortress or open battlefield (either Fearscape-style, or by deforming a chunk of the current floor temporarily) might be interesting. No ongoing damage or special debuffs to those caught in it, but instead gives you either a highly favorable position filled with choke-points and possibly traps (if a castle), or a wide-open area that periodically spawns medium-strength friendly soldiers and weak enemy soldiers, with two lines of archers to the side that fire in indiscriminate volleys (if a battlefield). Either could also spawn some neutral Weakling Peasants wandering around, drawing/blocking enemy fire and letting you easily swap places with them to use them as human shields (sorta like Curse of the Meek).

As a less extreme take on emphasizing tactical location selection, maybe they could get more benefits to using those "special areas" (Spellblaze Scar, Font of Life, Swirling Vortex, Anti-Magic Bush, etc), or gain the ability to create one or change an existing one's type?

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 3:56 pm
by Sradac
I like the creating battlefield effects idea. It reminds me of one of the races in Fallen Enchantress that can "fortify" any grid on the battlefield, which gives anyone stanging in it a defense and accuracy bonus.

Re: Dread Knight

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:22 pm
by Sradac
so this was not at all intended, but the Dread Knight actually makes pretty effective Ghosts:

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/ghost

and SUPER effective wights:

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/wights

Which, inadvertently makes a lot of sense. Former ruthless commander, fell in battle, refused to accept the fact that some petty soldiers lucky spear to your back took you down so you rose from your grave, to forever stalk the field and prove there is no fighter better than you.


Just another possible twist on the lore. Those race / class combos are a lot of fun. I have a feeling ghoul might be as well since con and str help dread knights quite a bit but that lack of cun and wil hurts.

The only problem with Ghost is it leaves their generic points spread VERY thin. But, the ghost racials boost the dread knight class trees of Fear and Gloom which should help their dread presence even more.