ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Let there be Gnomes!

Update (24.01.2015):

- added a visual distinction between generic and class trees in the dialogues where you choose which talent-type to learn


--- Major Revamp as of 20.12.2014 ---

*** No compatibility to older versions ***

Gnomes now offer a truly experimental game experience. Gnomes get two racial trees:

- one tree allows them to learn just about any talents associated to different meta themes (they can learn one type each of these groups: technique/cunning, spell/celestial/chronomancy, psionic/wild-gifts, cursed/corruption).

- the other tree provides general offensive and defensive benefits as well as resource (stamina, mana, psi, equilibrium) regeneration.

As a result, playing as a gnome makes it possible to spice up just about any class with new talent combinations normaly only experienced when playing the Adventurer class.

Additonaly, gnomes still start with their Gnomish Pocket Encyclopedia - an item, which at level 30 allows them to pick one further talent type from about just any category (excluding stone wardens talents).

Specifics - Stats and Racial Talents:

Stat modifiers: -4 Strength, +1 Dexterity, -6 Constitution, +1 Magic, +0 Willpower, +6 Cunning, +0 Luck
Life per level: 6
Experience penalty: 10%

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OLD TEXT - old versions:

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Hello community, I posted this addon a while ago on the official site, but until now didn't manage to post a topic on it. Doing this now to get some feedback about the addon (balancewise or in respect to any lua errors you might have encountered).

Addon-content:

1. New subrace: Gnomes (included: own starter-zone and quest)

2. Additional zones and quests:
a) Midlevel zone & quest (15-20): starts near Last Hope, related zone has to be found on the worldmap
b) Highlevel zone (35-50): a hidden zone, that can't be entered by normal means / a quest starts inside, on the 2nd level

About Gnomes:

Gnomes are distant relatives of Halflings, albeit a tad smaller in stature and much weaker physique. In the world of Maj_Eyal, not much is known about them for simple reasons: they usually don't leave home to go on adventures, much less to take part in heroic endeavours. People commonly mistake Gnomes for extraordinary small and malformed Halflings, even if that is far from being the truth. The existence of Gnomes as a proper subspecies has passed history unnoticed for centuries, while they lived peacefully, silent and hidden within Halfling society, dedicating their lives to the study of the physical, magical and historical dimensions of Maj'Eyal.

In theory, however, gnomes make great adventurers. While they lack any of those physical or magical attributes, that are commonly associated with a lifestyle dedicated to performing heroic deeds, they got the ability to gain advanced knowledge about almost anything related to skillful adventuring. They start their career with four instead of just one racial talent trees and are able to learn new skills or to specialize further in already known talent types - much further, than any other race could do. As a result, they make for very flexible game play with possible great offensive or defensive potential. This potential often is tough to put good use however, as their low life rating makes surviving at different stages of the game quite a bit hard.

Specifics - Stats and Racial Talents:

Stat modifiers: -6 Strength, -3 Dexterity, -8 Constitution,-3 Magic, +0 Willpower, +6 Cunning, +0 Luck
Life per level: 6
Experience penalty: 0%

(1) Art of Mentalism:
- Study of the Mind (small increase of Willpower and Cunning)
- Mental Arts (opens up various talent types for future training: Absorption, Psi-Fighting, Energy Manipulation, Focus and Mentalism)
- Mental Superiority (limited confusion, stun and daze immunities, faster PSI-power regeneration) [needs high willpower to unlock]
- Mindquake (Lightning/Brainlock Area Damage) [needs high willpower to unlock]

(2) Art of Combat:
- Study of the Body (small increase of Strength and Dexterity)
- Art of Fighting (opens up various talent types for future training: Conditioning, Combat Training, Dualweapon-Training, 2hweapon-assault and Shield-Offense)
- Anatomic Engineering (limited stun and pin immunities, increased physical power & accuracy, faster stamina regeneration) [needs high dexterity to unlock]
- Battlefield Excellence (global speed, critical multiplier, physical power boost for a short time) [needs high dexterity to unlock]

(3) Art of Magic:
- Study of Sorcery (small increase of Magic and Cunning)
- Sorcery Unbound (opens up various talent types for future training: Conveyance, Air, Phantasm, Enhancement and Meta)
- Magicarnation (increased spellpower and faster mana regeneration) [needs high magic to unlock]
- Echoes of Magic (a boost to cold, fire, lightning, arcane, light and darkness damage as well as silence immunity for a short time) [needs high magic to unlock]

(4) Art of Adventuring [need investment into cunning to unlock]:
- Basic Study on Adventuring (2 generic talent points with each pick)
- Advanced Study on Adventuring (2 class talent points with each pick)
- Profound Study on Adventuring (one additional category point with each pick)
- Grand Thesis (150hp passive bonus)

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Thoughts about the concept:

While it is true, that Gnomes get access to more talents and talent points than other classes, which might look very unbalanced, they are also very much in need of more talent points than other races, simply because they want to invest in some generics just to offset their starting stat disadvantages a bit. The idea behind Gnomes is to open up some kind of a middle ground between the Generic classes (granting them more skill-choices) and the Adventurer Class. That being said, the race/class combination of Gnomes + Adventurer isn't balanced at all at the moment, due to Adventurers (the class) being able to unlock alot of talent for free just by investing into the racial talents. But Adventurers are a fun class anyway, so that's okay I believe.

Not sure why but this does not show in my addon list after putting it in the folder... So I can't try it.

Zonk wrote:Not sure why but this does not show in my addon list after putting it in the folder... So I can't try it.

Did you check if the addon in the folder is called "tome-gnome" and not just "-gnome". Other than that, I am clueless why it shouldn't show up

Dao Zeti wrote:

Zonk wrote:Not sure why but this does not show in my addon list after putting it in the folder... So I can't try it.

Did you check if the addon in the folder is called "tome-gnome" and not just "-gnome". Other than that, I am clueless why it shouldn't show up

That works! I actually tried removing the - but not adding 'tome-'. Will try this a bit later and give m thoughts.

Works for me, and shows up in the addons list, FWIW (Tome 1.2.4, Arch Linux 64bit).
Haven't actually tried playing the race much yet though.

@Zonk's latest post: You may want to check that your browser is not trying to be overly clever with download names, because the download url includes the correct filename(http://te4.org/sites/default/files/game ... ome_3.teaa[/b]) and it should be saved with that name by default.

Seems like it was that, yes - odd.

Ok, so giving this a quick check, will give a better playthrough later:

The base racial stats seem quite extreme. The penalty to Magic is especially odd as Gnomes are stereotypically magical and halflings (who they are meant to be related to?) get +0. They even get a penalty to Dex.
Is this meant to balance the +stat talents they get? I'm not sure it's a good idea...

Also, are Gnomes meant to be very good at being both specialist and generalists? Seem like they are all about that.

Having a generic talent that gives you +2 generic talent is weird. Replace that with something else and give a free generic talent every X levels, capping at 25?
Being able to pay 1 generic to get 1 category point is also extremely hard to balance...

Hey Zonk, thanks alot for the feedback, much appreciated. You raise some good points and others I share a different view on.

Zonk wrote:Seems like it was that, yes - odd.

Ok, so giving this a quick check, will give a better playthrough later:

The base racial stats seem quite extreme. The penalty to Magic is especially odd as Gnomes are stereotypically magical and halflings (who they are meant to be related to?) get +0. They even get a penalty to Dex.
Is this meant to balance the +stat talents they get? I'm not sure it's a good idea...

Gnomes get penalties to dexterity, because they have trouble handling anything above the size of a pocketbook due to size and being physical weak and malformed. Who knows if they could even stand on one leg without falling over. Dexterity is mainly a combat orientated stat - the negative bonus reflects the inexperience of Gnomes with physical conflicts. Gnomish society could only survive, because Halflings keep them protected. Halflings traditionally let them work in laboratories and libraries, where gnomes excel du to their high cognitive potential (cunning). Same goes for magic (combat orientation gnomes lack). Of course, stereotypically gnomes are as magical as trolls or elves, though often associated with trickery or industriousness - which is being reflected by getting high cunning. Balancewise, yes, the idea is to give them a pretty rough starting but alot of means to somewhat balance it later on.

Zonk wrote:Also, are Gnomes meant to be very good at being both specialist and generalists? Seem like they are all about that.

Having a generic talent that gives you +2 generic talent is weird. Replace that with something else and give a free generic talent every X levels, capping at 25?
Being able to pay 1 generic to get 1 category point is also extremely hard to balance...

The category points they can get is pretty unbalancing, no doubt about that and I consider limiting that part a bit. Paying a generic to gain two however has to be seen within the flavour text of the talent - spending the point reflects you finishing and publishing firsthande made experiences in adventuring. Just handing out free generics you probably wouldn't even notice. The class was build around the idea of manipulating regular mechanisms of adventuring and careerbuilding in a slight unorthodox way (hence multiple racial talenttrees).

The fact however, that they can end up being both very good specialists and generalists is really troublesome - part of that is, because at them moment they can easily raise talent masteries - something, that has to be fixed, when I find time.

I started to dislike the concept of buyable talent and category points more and more and as such revamped the race. Gnomes still have the ability to gain talent types normally not available to their class, but now they can choose more freely and learn them unlocked. As a result, they are limited by the same amount of category points as other species.

At level 4, 16, 28 and 40 gnomes can pick a group of talents they want to learn a talent type from (addon talents included). While this allows for great freedom, they still have to consider carefully how to spent their precious talent points (both generic and class talents).

Would it be possible to say if a talent tree is generic or class?

mkire wrote:Would it be possible to say if a talent tree is generic or class?

Technically its easy, as generic trees have a genuine flag. When I'll find time, I'll implement it.

Dao Zeti wrote:

mkire wrote:Would it be possible to say if a talent tree is generic or class?

Technically its easy, as generic trees have a genuine flag. When I'll find time, I'll implement it.

thanks.

mkire wrote:

Dao Zeti wrote:

mkire wrote:Would it be possible to say if a talent tree is generic or class?

Technically its easy, as generic trees have a genuine flag. When I'll find time, I'll implement it.

thanks.

Provided an update now which lets you see if a talent tree is generic or class.