Racial Trees

[Final Master]

This is a continuation or separation from a previous discussion, located here - http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 70&start=0

First off, I do agree that the undead should be different from the living races. I think that having the innate status resists is that - and that is the real reason why the vast majority of people that play undead races do so. So, in sight of that, I see no reason to restrict races from having their own trees. I also believe that these trees should be racially defining, and as such, applicable in all cases where the race would make the more definitive choice over class. I'm not sure what I meant when I said that last bit but maybe someone will. I also say, they need to be generic points - flat out. As generic points are much more limited to class, and generic are not meant to be class defining - it would then push the point to be 'more powerful racially' or more 'generically capable'. I feel that this is a very important thing to note, we do not need additional points - we already have Stat Points, Class Points, Generic Points and Category Points - that's a lot, and it IS confusing to new players.

Now then, I would suggest one streamlined thing to keep the races tied together but also shoved apart, and the current list of undead talents is a good idea. The level 1 racial talents should be very similar between core race [currently that is Higher/Cornac and Shalore/Thalore and Skeleton/Ghoul] - and I like the level 1 talents for Skeleton and Ghoul - those being the ones that raise two stats by 2 points for each generic point invested. I would recommend we stay away from a similar talent for all the other races - this is to help keep each of the races different. That is the whole practice here - to make the races different [and race choice matter]. I would also say that - just like the undead races, each race should start with a point in their first racial talent - it only makes sense; as it shows/deminstrates what race you are.

Along with all this, yes, we need to make sure that these are racially defining, not class defining talents. There, in my opinion, shouldn't be an uber race/class combination - just due to the racial talents - that just means that those racial talents probably should be class talents for that class. And as such, I'd like to follow a bit of a pattern. I would like Activate, Passive, Passive, Activate. - except in the case of the undead, keep them different you know. ;)

The reason for this particular pattern is such: I think the current racial activates are ... okay enough to be talents. Thus, they should be active talents - and as they are the most familiar thing with people currently, should be the first talent. Now some people might go and say "Hey, FM, this doesn't do ANYTHING then, all you are giving us is what we already have!" And, I would say yes, yes I am. However, as with any other talent, these would scale with points invested, instead of only in a certain stat. Now, overall, this would make each individual racial activate better - as most classes simply don't have the points to raise the stat that the current racial activate uses. Instead, you can spend generic points to increase their potency. This would also show the basis of the classes - Highers have regenerative properties, Dwarves are very into rocks, Hobbits know where to hit, s.Elf can move like a cheetah, and w.Elf is a master of battle.

The second and third racial talents I believe should be passive to show their innate abilities. As you don't need to do anything actively to achieve this benefit, it radiates flavor. These are the two talents that should REALLY show off - at the heart - what the race is all about. These two talents should be the most outreaching talents in the game - if the race is magical [s.Elf], then have them have something that doesn't exist yet!

The last talent I feel should also be an activate, something to sum up all three of the other talents, and then add in a bit more chewiness. These should also be powerful - all four should be, yes, to make them worth using, but the last one more so. I feel that the fourth racial should be a two part talent, you get x, but at tlvl 5 you get x AND y. And y should be a big deal to get - kinda like the resurrect from the Skeleton racial.


Now then, with all this in mind - I do have some suggestions.

Code: Select all

Higher
          -  Gift of the Pureborn - Regenerate HP – Increase effects with Con-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Overseer of Nations - Increase LOS range by 1 per tlvl - Passive
          -  Born into Magic – Increase Physical/Spell Crit by x% - Increase effects with Will-tlvl - Passive
          -  The Knightly Path - Increase Physical Damage and Spellpower [not the %] by x for y turns - Increase effects with Will-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active

Cornac
          -  Human Conditioning – Gain 2 Stat Points per tlvl - Passive
          -  Higher Learning – Gain 2 Generic Points per tlvl - Passive
          -  Versatility – Gain 1 Class Point per tlvl - Passive
          -  Unlocked Potential – Gain 1 Category Point that can only be used to increase MASTERY in GENERIC [non racial] trees or unlocking new trees - Passive


Elf (Shalore)
          -  Grace of the Eternals - Increase Global Speed by x% - Increase effects with Dex-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Secrets of Eternals – Increase Light/Nature/Darkness/Blight/Temporal resist by x – Increase effects with Will-tlvl - Passive
          -  Magic of the Eternals – Increase Spellpower/all Crits by x – Increase effects with Will-tlvl - Passive
          -  Life as Eternal – Abosrb x damage-effect disappears in y turns – Increase effects with Will-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active


Elf (Thalore)
          -  Wrath of the Eternals - Increase Damage All and Resist All by x% - Increase effects with Will-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Freedom of the Wind – Increase Physical/Mental Saves by x – Increase effects with Dex-tlvl - Passive
          -  Guardian of the Wood – Increase Accuracy and Ranged Defense by x – Increase effects with Will-tlvl - Passive
          -  Nature’s Pride – Increase Max_Life by x% and Life Regeneration by y% - Increase effects with Dex-tlvl/Duration with tlvl


Elf [Naloren] (Naga)
          -  
          -  
          -  
          -  



Halfling (Eldoran)- Militant
          -  Luck of the Little Folk - Increase Physical/Spell Critical chance by x% - Increase effects with Cun-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Duck and Dodge - Increase Defense by x [2?] per size category difference with NPC in melee – Increase effects by Cun-tlvl - Passive
          -  Militant Mind – Increase MOVEMENT Speed based on number of enemy NPCs in LOS – Increase Effect/Decrease # needed to trigger with Dex-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Passive
          -  Natural Leader – Increase GLOBAL Speed to all friendly units in LOS – Increase effects by Will-tlvl/Duration by tlvl - Active


Halfling (Nargol) – Scientific 
          -  Method over Instinct – Increase Damage All Penetration by x% - Increase effects with Will-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Magic Devices – Increase effect of Wands by x% - Increase effects with Cun-tlvl - Passive
          -  Knowledge over Power – Gain a bonus to Spellpower based on %Cun – Increase effects with Cun-tlvl - Passive
          -  Research Material - Increase Damage Type % by x% if you already increase that damage type – Increase effects based on LORE found-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active


Dwarf
          -  Resilience of the Dwarves - Increase Armor by x and Physical/Spell Saves by y – Increase effects with Con-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Veteran Trader - Increase Buy/Sell ratios better in favor of the player by x% - Higher % with Cun-tlvl - Passive 
          -  Power is Money - Increase Physical/Magical/Mind Saves based on the amount of gold you have [Taking into Character Level {based in 100’s}] - Increased effect by amount of gold with Cun-tlvl - Passive
          -  Stone Walking – Travel through adjacent wall and appear on the other side in the next direct open spot – Distance Traveled increases with Con-tlvl/Cooldown decreases with tlvl 


Skeleton
          -  Skeleton - Increase Strength and Dexterity by 2 for each point - Passive
          -  Throw Bones - Throws bones dealing Physical damage + Bleeding – Increase effects with Str-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Empty Sockets - 15% Blind resistance and 1 Infravision range for each point - Passive
          -  Re-assemble - Heal x hp [this needs to be doubled, minimally], and at tlvl 5 it's a *one time* auto resurrect - Active


Ghoul
          -  Ghoul - Increase Strength and Constitution by 2 for each point - Passive
          -  Ghoulish Leap - Leap toward your target – Increase effects with tlvl - Activate
          -  Gnaw - Gnaw on your target doing x% Blight damage trying to Stun and Disease it – Increase effects with Str[Bite]Con[Disease]-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Death Approaches – Increase Global Speed by 5% for each point - Passive 


Orc
          -  Orcish Fury – Increase all damage types by x – Increase effects with Will-tlvl – Duration with tlvl - Active
          -  Skirmisher – Increase ATTACK SPEED based on the number of non-allied npcs within x radius and in LOS – Increase effects with Cun-tlvl/Duration with tlvl - Passive
          -  Hold the Ground – Increase Phys/Mental saves – Increase effects with Cun-tlvl - Passive
          -  Pride of the Orcs – Recover x HP and remove 1/2/3 Negative Status – Increase effects based on Will-tlvl – Active *INSTANT*

This is just a proposal of possible talents in the racial trees. These are by no means definitive, though with all the discussion and creative process that has been involved in these, and the feedback given already, it seems that they aren't too bad. If anyone has any changes or imput on these, feel free. The more player feedback on these, the better the chance that racial trees will be used - and that means easier design for class coders, and even greater game play options. It'll also mean real choices for race when talking about optimization.

Thank you Zonk, Edge, Pap, Het, DG and the others that have helped coming up with these trees. Also, despite anything I made have said previously, I am NOT coding all these up, I have no clue how to do even a third of these. Now, if someone were to show me a bit then I would at least attempt. Some of these I think I could code now, but I am NOT doing all of these – because I just don’t know how.

Thank you for reading, and as always, player input and feed back is NEEDED on such large changes as these. Also, keep in mind, this is simply a proposal - not anything more.


Thanks again guys in the channel,

FM

[Grey]

Wow, this is excellently put together. The racial abilities proposed fit in extremely well with the racial profiling, without pigeon-holing them too much.

Some things will be hard to code, like the Dwarf money-related talent. From what I've heard passives can't easily scale with anything other than base talent level, as these things vary a lot and the passive effects are only applied on changing talent investment. Perhaps some clever people will figure out ways of making it work though.

And I think maybe there should be more generic points in the game if we expect people to use these. Either that or more trees need to be turned into class points. Perhaps the general combat trees should be a class tree for melee types?

[Sirrocco]

FM, I'm going to have to disagree with you - not on specifics, but on structure. Specifically, I think your plan involves *way* too much of it.

I'm fond of Racial Points, myself, but your point there is telling. We really *don't* need another anything to confuse and bewilder the poor newbies. It's better dropped. I think, though, that trying to shoehorn everything into the same shape is a mistake. Like I said in the other thread, why does every race have to have the same number of skills? Some of the races just aren't that different. Some of them aren't even that different from Cornac. Let different races have different skill blocks. Cornacs have no racial skills - or perhaps just one. Let Highers have two or so. Let elves and dwarves have three each - the dwarves a little heavier on the passives and sustains, the elves a little heavier on the actives. Halflings would have two or three, depending on how many really good skills we could come up with for them. Orcs (when they show up) would have about three, and undead might have four or five. I do like what you were saying about subclass similarity, though. Having each base type sharing a racial skill (or even two) would be pretty cool. The elves would all share one skill, that spoke back to their shared elvish heritage. The dwarves (if/when there are more dwarf types) would share one (or even two) skills, depending on how distinct the races of the dwarves were. The halflings would as well, and so on. Humans would share not having all that many skills.

...and, nearly as importantly, trimming down the number of skills required for each race will mean that we don't need filler skills in quite the same way.

Innate status resists are nice, it's true, but they're not all that flavorful. They are power, but they don't generally shape gameplay in the way that it feels like races ought to (and, indeed, in the way that races *will*, once we have a decent set of racial skills). When the big difference between races is the stat points, the weird races have weird stats When the big difference is the innates (as in most Angband variants) the weird races are the ones with lots of resists, a vulnerability or two, and some other oddly shaped innates. When the big difference between the races is the racial skills (as will be the case here) the weird races should have appropriately weird skill setups (ie, lots of skills, and skills that change gameplay in more significant ways). Of course, they'll also get odd innates - the resists and the inability to use infusions and so forth - but that's not enough in a system where racial differences are defined by skills.

Note that I'm not saying that the undead races should be more powerful. I'm saying they should be weirder. If giving them more skill options on top of their resists means that they eventually wind up overpowered, then I'm all for coming back with the nerf-scalpel and trimming a bit of the power away somewhere.

As for the specific skills - a number of them I have no real comment on - they seem decent. I'll be commenting on the ones I see issues with, am concerned about, or particularly like for some reason.
- Overseer of Nations would have been underpowered under the old default sight range 20 rules. Not sure under the sight range 10 rules. Could be cool, could be broken. Can't really tell.
- Born into Magic has really pretty poor lore support for the physical crit side of things, both by name and by nature of the Highers.

- Human Conditioning is pathetic
- Higher Learning is overpowered. It's basically the same as saying "Cornacs only have a racial tree three tiers high, but they get 5 free generic points"
- Versatility is strong, but not ridiculous. I was actually thinking of it as an appropriate way to give the Cornacs a single skill that would fit their theme well, be well worth taking for some builds, and so on - much like their category point turned into when we swapped to runes/infusions.
- Unlocked Potential is... overpowered and a little odd. 1 Category Point for 1 Generic point is tremendously cheap, even with the given limited options for use. After all, pretty much everyone wants to unlock at least a tree or two. The odd bit is that actually making proper use of it requires waiting on unlocking your other trees until you've gotten the skill, but even that's pretty trivial.

- Secrets of the Eternals: It'd be tricky to get the percentages right, but otherwise fine
- Magic of the Eternals: Not sure why they'd get nonmagical crits. Also not sure if the Shalorans should be getting all that much racial crit-love in general. Note that this skill means that the Shalorans have more crit support than *either* variety of halfling, under your suggested skills.
- Life as Eternal - not sure we should be giving the Shalorans a survivability power, either. Not really their schtick.

- Freedom of the Wind: Not convinced that this one is terribly useful. In my experience, saves are unreliable enough that you pretty much have to get resists anyway, and once you have the resists, what do you need saves for? Mind you, this may just be bias and/or lack of understanding on my part.
- Guardian of the Wood: This one is pretty cool on its face, but it meshes weirdly with Weapon Combat. People who want this skill will have easy access to Weapon Combat (and won't max it. Does *anyone* max Weapon Combat?), meaning that this skill either becomes a Clearly mildly Better Than, a Clearly somewhat Worse Than, or a "swap accuracy for ranged defense" - none of which seem all that interesting.
- Nature's Pride: having an HP-skill go off of dex is a bit odd, but it's cool otherwise.

- Duck and Dodge: Nice. Might want to make this one (or something riffing off of it - possibly adding in some interesting secondary benefit) the shared halfling skill.
- Militant Mind: a little wacky. Seems like it might need a bit of hammering to get something that's easy to code and easy for the player to understand (and perhaps a name change), but I like the basic concept. Given that it's a speed-boosting passive, that scales with numebr of monsters ont eh board, you're going to need to have the base numebrs be pretty low if you don't want ti to be overwhelmingly powerful. Still, it's a bit of extra "run away!" that kicks in when you need it most, and that's cool.
- Natural Leader: The leadership aspect is going to mostly not matter to anyone who isn't a summoner or an alchemist - which means that if it's going to be generally viable, it has to affect the PC and do so at least reasonably significantly - but giving halflings a "burst of speed" active isn't a bad thing. A bit tricky to make it useful for normal folks and not overpowered for summoners, perhaps.

The Nargol stuff looks a bit on the wacky side, but not bad - I note that a Nargol Shadowblade is potentially getting quite a *lot* of spellpower out of their cunning.

- Veteran Trader is pretty useless to grinding types. More money? What's the use in that, when there's nothign useful for sale?
- Power is Money is odd, and depends on the idea that saves are important enough to carry a skill all by themselves.
- Stone Walking is either an amazing capstone skill or basically redundant, depending on which class you're playing as.

Running out of energy, so I'm going to leave the undead side of things without comment for the moment.

The orc skills look fine for the most part. Skirmisher gets about the same comments that Militant Mind did. Hold the Ground is, again, based on saves. Pride of the Orcs would need to have a pretty long cooldown, but is otherwise cool.

[Zonk]

From what I've heard passives can't easily scale with anything other than base talent level, as these things vary a lot and the passive effects are only applied on changing talent investment. Perhaps some clever people will figure out ways of making it work though.

Depends.
If the passive gives its bonuses immediately upon being learned, like the +regen passives, then yes, that's awkard and I've brought it up in the past in chat.

However many passives work differently - they are instead used in formulas/functions. These aren't problematic at all, every time the get<thing> function is called for the actor, it can recalculate the talent effect again. (One way to fix the regen passives to work with masteries is to have get_regen functions for each resource).


Aside from this...I like most of the talents. The ones I'm not so sure about:

Veteran Trader
While I like the mechanics, I don't think this really fits as racial talent, even with dwarves being VERY mercantile. It feels quite generic to me, almost as if it could/should be a talent every adventurer could learn.

Power is Money
I don't like the inverse scaling with level - I understand the balance concerns, but doing it this way means that after gaining a few levels from say a boss, the talent would become WORSE until I get the 'proper' wealth level again.

Throw Bones
This is already ingame as a talent(for NPCs)but still, it just feels silly to me, sorry If we could think of something else that fits skeletons...

[edge2054]

Maybe I'm biased since I came up with the skills for the cornac but I see things differently then Sirrocco .

Human Conditioning isn't great but it's two stat points that could be spent on anything. If it's to weak bump it up to 3 and split the difference with it and similar talents that aren't as versatile.

Higher Learning is saying Cornacs get three trees and five extra talent points, I can't argue with that. I disagree about 5 generic talents being overpowered over the course of the game though.

Unlocked Potential is only as strong as the talent points you can invest in trees you open. Though I would drop the generic mastery that may mean there's not enough talent trees to open without learning some new ones from escorts (which may be alright really).

[yufra]

Instead of Skeleton's Throw Bones, how about Sharp Bones which adds an innate physical damage when they are hit in melee?

[Sirrocco]

Actually, human conditioning is even a bit worse than you think it is. The talents that add straight stat bonuses (the Alchemist enchant ability, and the +2/+2 from the undead) all (currently) give bonuses above natural max. Human conditioning would just give extra stat points, which can't take you above natural max. At the end of the game, those two (or three) points would go into your third and fourth-most-favorite stats. Your two most favorite are going to be maxxed already.

You're not getting what Unlocked Potential really does. Consider - the skill isn't about unlocking trees. It's about saving you the category points that you would have spent on unlocking trees anyway. Pretty much everyone unlocks at least one tree. Most unlock two. That means that, by default, this racial skill equates to "spend two generic points. Get two category points, usable on anything." You then turn around and spend those points on improving the mastery levels of your trees of choice and/or finishing out your collection of investiture (rune/infusion) slots. If you have a class skill tree with a mastery of 1.000, and two skills at level 5, that category point is worth an extra two points to you, added on top of your best skills in the tree, in addition to whatever secondary effects you might have gotten by buffing the unlock skills.

Really, then, what this skill tree does isn't "Cornacs get 5 generic skill points." It's basically "Cornacs get 2 stat points, 1 class point, 1 generic point, 2 category points, plus the option to turn up to 4 generic points into class points." ...but that's beside the point. I'm not saying this is broken. I'm not saying it's unbalanced. If it were a brokenness or unbalance thing, you could fix it by tweaking the skills themselves. That's totally not the point. I'm saying it's unthematic. Cornacs aren't supposed to be the race that will sink 8-12 points into their racial skills every time. They're supposed to be the race for people who want their race to be the least interesting thing about them - to have the racial effects that will get out of the way and let them do what they came to do. I can see the point of giving them one skill, just so that every race has *some* skills to play with. Higher Learning (perhaps better if named something like "human adaptability") fits the bill perfectly. They don't need more than that.

I suppose I can try to throw together a sample set this evening.

[Sirrocco]

I also like interesting - but the point of Cornacs is to be the normal ones, that everyone else can compare themselves to. Also, they're not bad. They're not at all bad. They currently get an extra category point (which makes them a strong contender for a number of builds) and under this plan they'd get the ability to convert a few generic points into class points (which would make them pretty appealing for a number of others - especially if we give them that first point for free, like all the other races get.) Cornacs are supposed to be interesting for what they do, not for what they are. They are the race that everyone else gets compared to. If you don't have some races that are weirder and some that are less weird, then all you get is a whole bunch of races that are all exactly as weird as one another, and that just doesn't seem as much fun to me. I want to be able to move up and down that scale when I want to.

[Canderel]

I play cornacs for the +0% exp needed... So I can try highler level skills etc. But in tome, monsters level, and levels are a 2 edged sword. Anyway, gaining extra points would *entice* me to pick it more, because I can get to the higher level abilities quicker.

Also, I would either introduce Race points, or take away both Generic and Class (I sonehow doubt this'll happen), and just have points to allocate wherever. But using generic points on Race abilities... Nah...

[Marcotte]

I don't have much opinion about having Cornac being the boring class (in which case I will never play them) versus having them being interesting in a "generic" way.
However, Final Master suggestions strikes me as making Cornac the perfect specialists, as it will allow them to get more Stat Points (at least before reaching the cap), generic talent points and class talent points to allow them to master whatever they want. So a Cornac archmage is a more-archmage-than-an-archmage, a Cornal fighter is a more-fighter-than-a-fighter, etc...
My preference would be to have Cornac be good at being generalist, giving them bonuses for having a well-spread talents distribution. Here would be my own suggestion:

Code: Select all

1 - Unfocused Training: +2 bonus in 2 random stat.
2 - Inscription Addict: -5% cooldown time per talent level for inscriptions. At raw level 5, gives another inscription slot.
3 - Jack-of-all-Trades: Increases by 0.05 the effective level of all known talents per raw Jack-of-all-Trades talent levels.
4 - Power of Balance: Increases each stats by (2*T+M - S), if it is greater than zero. T is the talent level, M is the raw value of the _lowest_ stat, and S is the stat to be increased.

While the two first skills are somewhat useful to all players, the last two are meant for players that have either many low-level talents (Jack-of-all-Trades) or use all of their stats (Power of Balance). Obviously these last two would change the way a class is played, so Sirrocco probably won't like them.

[Marcotte]

The bonus to a random stat is really odd. I don't understand why it has to be random at all. Why can't the player select a stat to increase? If it is a matter of power don't make it +2.

The reason is suggested a random increase is that such that it would be a worthwhile talent if the player would accept the increase of any stat. So a character who raise 4 or 5 of his stats would find it useful. Another who raise only 2 or 3 would then avoid the talent.

The last ability seems formatted improperly. I read it as (2 to 10) + (8 to 10) - (X) where (X) is the stat. So it could be that you have 5 points in the talent (value T*2 = 10) and your lowest attribute base can be as low as 8 (I have yet to see a stat base lower than this though maybe Orcs have lower?) which means stats that are over 18 value (most useful ones by the time this talent is maxed) will gain no benefit from it at all. Somehow that seems like too many points spent doing nothing.

Now if it was formatted as (2*(T+M) - S) it would still be limited in usefulness but capped at 26 rather than 18 at maxed level.

No, you understood it correctly. There would be two ways to take advantage of this talent. Either keep all your stats at the same level and get +10 to all of them, or keep equal only the stats your character need less to increase them all. So a fighter could get a +10 to DEX/MAN/WIL/CUN, which shouldn't be that useless.

[Grey]

A problem with random stat increases is that one could simply invest in the talent and then take the point out again, and repeat that until they get the stats they want.

[yufra]

A problem with random stat increases is that one could simply invest in the talent and then take the point out again, and repeat that until they get the stats they want.

True, so maybe the random stats to improve should be set at character generation and stored within the player object. This is how the escort levels are handled to avoid people popping between levels trying to "trigger" an escort.

[Zonk]

I *really* dislike the idea of that talent giving bonuses to random stats.

I think 'stat points to spend like the ones you get from level ups' is the best way of doing it - it fits with the versatility thing.

Remember that unlike the bonuses from the Skeleton/Ghoul talent, this would NOT increase the maximum/cap, which prevents 'over specialization'.

[Zonk]

Are you 100% certain of that? I got an escort quest going back through the trollmire in an earlier section when I had already been through that section with no escort quest, so it seems like it depends on some chance factor whether they show up.

That means you couldn't get it before because the escort couldn't spawn properly(not enough space, basically).