New Class: Demonologist

[Valoron]

Ok, this just came to me about a week ago, and I haven't fleshed out the details, but if I don't get the basic idea out there I'll lose it... So here goes:

The demonologist class would depart from the demonologist of old middle-earth-TOME, and would be based on lore along these lines - A demonologist is a person who studies the channeling and use of demonic energies. Mortals cannot use these energies themselves, but demonologists circumvent this by using ancient forbidden methods to call a demon to this plane and negotiate a bargain: in exchange for grafting itself onto the demonologist's soul and giving him access to the demon's powers, the demon is given the right to consume the demonologist's soul upon his death. The demonologist quickly learns, however, that demons are tricky, and the demon failed to mention that mortal flesh is corroded by channeling demonic energies. Therefore, every time the demonologist uses the powers he sold his soul for, he comes that much closer to dying and becoming a snack for his hungry demon.

Accordingly, demonology powers are not based on any resource bar, but rather directly consume the hit points of the demonologist when used - activated abilities damage the demonologist by a certain amount, and sustained abilities lower his max HP while active.

I envision a few different talent trees at the moment (they need some demonology-sounding names):

An enhancement/buffing tree containing sustained abilities like a fire-based melee damage add, defense/armor bonus, stat increases, resistances, speed, etc. A demonologist specializing in this tree can become very powerful in melee, but will have low max HP as a tradeoff, requiring interesting play style adjustments.

A spellcasting/damage tree containing activated abilities like single target damage, area damage, stun/daze/other crowd control, etc. A demonologist specializing in this tree would play similar to a mage, but would be even more vulnerable to any enemies that survive his ranged onslaught than a mage would, since his HP would be drained by his spells.

A summoning tree to summon various demons for a short time via activated abilities.

And more, that's just a start. All of the talents would be highly effective (i.e. high damage, high stat increases, etc) to reflect the extreme disadvantage their usage causes by draining the user's HP.

I think they'd be an afflicted base class, but I don't know for sure about that...

[Valoron]

Oh, and I'd also start the demonologist with access to the melee-based generic trees (i.e. armor and weapon masteries, etc). Demonology talents would be willpower based, but of course a demonologist would have to invest in constitution as well because of the HP consumption.

[Valoron]

Also, although the demonologist does not possess any resource bar and uses infernal rather than arcane energies, I'd still bar him from Zigur since the antimagic folks seem to conflate arcane magic with demonic powers in the lore and would likely be hostile to a demonologist.

[asthmatic_thematic]

love the idea of a class whose powers have a drawback more serious than just cool-offs and depleting a resource bar.

using up HP is a great idea--this could crystallize the moments when we're close to death. not just "can't use X, would die," but, "hmmm, i'm low on HP, and if i use X, i'll be even lower; but X is my best way out right now; what to do?" setting the resource bar as HP is very in line with how i think of demonology. one could even imagine a demon popping out to help the character if HP is high; but try to kill the character opportunistically if HP gets too low.

but this might be a bit limited, in that powers may be so great that the HP penalty would always cause death or near death. one could layer on top of that disabilities like risk of stun or confusion, slowness, lowered armor, etc.

demonology: always a tradeoff. with great power comes great vulnerability. i like it!

[lukep]

Fatigue would be much more important for this class.

[Flare]

This has to be a corrupted class. We've already seen a cult of Corruptors summon a demon, and one of the Corruptor's ability trees deals in demonic arts. That should make it pretty clear where demon-summoning falls into the scheme of Maj'Eyal.

Let's include the Shadowflame tree in the demonologist's repertoire. The Shadowflame tree only consumes vim, but that's no big deal - let's just say that Shadowflame is demonology for wimps.

To separate demonologist summoning from Summoner summoning, I propose that demon summons must involve a sacrifice. The following move would work.

- Sacrifice: (Active.) Deals a melee blow at reduced damage. If the opponent dies of this blow, a demon will be summoned to your side. Points in this skill increase damage of the initial blow and extend the duration of the demon. The rank of demon you get depends on the rank of the creature sacrificed. Killing a friendly creature earns you a demon companion that will stay with you until it dies. Demons cannot be sacrificed.

This move seems a little... abrupt, somehow. Like summoning a demon should involve a little more ceremony. Maybe another move that uses your blood to mark runes on the victim, preparing it for sacrifice?

- Mark: (Active.) Inscribe evil sigils on your victim. The Marked status has no effect, but is required for other moves. Costs both blood and vim to use. Points in this skill reduce the cost and increase the duration.

This also allows the possibility of marking yourself for some reason.

[itastelikelove]

Mark: (Active.) Inscribe evil sigils on your victim. The Marked status has no effect, but is required for other moves. Costs both blood and vim to use. Points in this skill reduce the cost and increase the duration.

This also allows the possibility of marking yourself for some reason.

Perhaps putting a demonic Mark on yourself could allow you to cheat death - if you die while the mark lasts, the demon possesses you completely for a few turns, then you come back with some small percentage of your Health.

After all, any demonologist who's clever enough to live with a tricky demon must have a few dirty tricks of his own.

Speaking of which, I'd say there should be at LEAST one Cunning-based tree for demonologists. In fact, I think Cunning should be pretty much equal to Willpower in importance. Winning a contest of Wills might save your life, but you'll be better off avoiding it in the first place.

[Valoron]

I like the way this is developing! I was thinking there should be a tree that is based around the demonologist's constantly improving ability to wrangle with his demon and its powers rather than containing more demonic powers. Like a passive ability that reduces HP cost of abilities, maybe an active ability that offers more health to the demon in exchange for a temporary increase in the power of the other abilities, etc...

[Flare]

Okay, so how's this for a start:

Demonic / Mark
Scales with Cunning and Will.
- Mark: (Described above.)
- Burst: (Activated.) Summon a portion of the demon plane directly into a Marked opponent, causing X fire damage and X dark damage. If the opponent dies of this move, they explode, causing X fire damage and X dark damage to all creatures in a radius of X. (Maybe move this spell into a magic-oriented tree.)
- Sacrifice: (Described above.)
- Feign Death: (Sustained.) Your maximum health is reduced by X% while Feign Death is active. If you die while Marked, a demon is summoned into the world for a few turns. At the end of that time, you will be brought back to life at X% health. Cooldown on this move is huge.

Demonic / Bargaining
Scales with Cunning.
- Haggle: (Passive.) Reduces health cost of demonic talents by X%.
- Deal: (Activated.) Sacrifice X health to gain X skill mastery in all of your abilities for X turns.
- Delayed Payment: (Activated.) Do not pay the health cost for your talents for X turns, at the end of which you will pay the full accumulated amount.
- Misdirect: (Activated.) Causes a Marked opponent to pay X% of your talent costs, until the mark wears off. Works well with Delayed Payment.

I also submit the following pair of demons.
Channel Aeris: (Sustained.) Raises Str and Dex, and speed. Every time you damage an enemy, you gain points on a counter. If the counter ever hits zero, you start losing health at X health/turn.
Channel Bob: (Sustained.) Raises spellpower, criticals, and saves. Consumes x vim/turn. When you run out of Vim, Bob starts inflicting daze, stun, and confusion.

Only with more evil-sounding names than Aeris and Bob.

Also, here's a bit of a curveball, but it's entirely consistent. Most demons in Maj'Eyal are physical creatures, deadly to a person's body but uninterested in their mind. The only place we find demons interested in possessing people is in the scintillating caves. In the scintillating caves, demons influence people by channeling their energy through crystals. To reinforce this principle, demonologists should channel demons through a gem. This is mostly for flavor, as there isn't much practical difference between a normal sustain, and a sustain which requires a gem equipped. The fact that psionicists also equip gemstones for channeling energy should encourage players to develop theories about the physics of Maj'Eyal.