Updating Horrors *Possible Spoilers*

[edge2054]

I'd like to start working on some horror specific talents to make them more horrifying once I get Brawlers touched up (which I plan to do tomorrow or the next day hopefully), add a few more horrors, and rename them so they fall more in line with other monsters in the game (like demons).

To give a base idea of some of the stuff I'm thinking of here's a few talent teasers.

Horror Touch (curse) - A percentage of all damage done by the target heals the horror as it relishes in the targets violent actions.

Rend Flesh (physical/psionic) - Telekenitically peels the flesh from the target's bones, inflicting physical damage each turn and stunning the target.

Pain Amplification (hex) - Damage done to the target is increased and has a chance to daze it for two turns.

Psychic Vampirism (mental) - Lowers the targets stats and adds it to the casters.

Damage Shift (magical) - Swaps current life with the target (so if the horror is at 10% life and the target is at 90% the horror will be at 90% and the target 10%).

Also I'd like to make some more specific stuff for each horror subtype. I don't like that the light horror's use Sun Paladin spells for instance :/ On the other hand I'd like for the darkness based horror's spells to be based off Doomed spells rather then Anorithil spells (and is one of the changes I'm planning to make.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting this thread is so if anyone has some ideas they'd like to contribute to this project they can, rather it be horror names, horror ideas, or new talents

[lukep]

I like most of the talents as they are, and all of their concepts, but I have a few comments:

Rend Flesh: make the physical damage and stunning two separate effects, both applied by the talent? This would prevent stun resist from letting you avoid the damage, at the downside of making talents like Providence and Wild Infusion less viable of a counter. This is very possibly what you intended, but I wasn't sure.

Damage Shift: this looks way, WAY too powerful, and could very easily lead to an instakill of any character, even against much weaker enemies. I would suggest replacing it with: Damages the target for 50% of the Horror's lost life, healing the Horror for 50% of the target's remaining health (before damage). The numbers could be adjusted for balance. This would lead to a similar result as the proposed skill if used intelligently, without the risk of instakill.

[edge2054]

Yeah, Rend Flesh would be two separate effects.

Damage Shift I figure would be rare (a few elite horrors only) and what I wrote above was just an example though the point is valid. An approach I think would be less lethal would be for each talent level to allow a 5% shift. In other words it'd take a talent level of 18 to do what I said in the example (90/10 swap). At talent level 5 only 25% damage would be shifted (so the horror would heal 25% of it's life in damage and the target would take 25% of max life as damage).

[lukep]

Damage Shift sounds good now, but I would set the cap much below 90%, maybe at 70%.

Now for some new ideas for talents:

Mortal Terror: applies Fear effect on the player, reducing all damage dealt by the player by 50-70%. When you are targeted by an attack, you have a 30% chance to instantly move to an adjacent open tile, avoiding the attack (except for AoE attacks). Checks mindpower vs. mental saves for resistance.

Hallucination: summons 10 (?) random Horrors (including at least one the same type as the caster) with duration 10. These Horrors have a hidden champion style debuff (eg. like the gloomy Norgos Lair monsters) of -100% damage, -100% chance for effects, and some removed skills (like Hallucination, disempower, and Call of Terror). They act as normal, but their actions have no effect. There is no way to distinguish them from regular monsters.

Disempower: drains 50 mana, 50 stamina, 20 psi, 20 pos and neg energies, and similar amounts for the rest of the resources, buffing the Horror for +(10-15% based on amount drained) damage for 5 or so turns, and giving it the resources, if applicable. Checks spellpower vs. spell saves for resistance

Call of Terror: teleports a random enemy from the level next to you, and applies the buff "terrifying surprise" on it, granting 20% chance to apply Fear effect on any damage it deals in the next 5 turns.

And some new Horrors:

Ethereal Horror: Intrinsic invisibility and evasion, passes through walls, lower damage than other Horrors. Physical immune, elemental resists, and vulnerable to light, dark, and arcane.

Inscribed Horror: much fewer talents than other Horrors, but has 6 rune slots, that it uses well.

Arcane Horror: Arcane Immune, vulnerable to Physical damage. Has skills like the Arcane Blasting tree, found in this link.

Black Horror: has antimagic talents, including Resolve and Antimagic Shield. Does not have any arcane skills, to fit with antimagic.

Unstable Horror (rename me): shifts through the attributes of all the other Horrors at random, switching every 15% of health lost.

[edge2054]

Great ideas lukep

Another fear effect I had in mind was a fear based paralysis like the old style stuns (adding it here before I forget).

[lukep]

Fear paralysis sounds...powerful, maybe make it a 100% chance to fail most actions, so it is not pretty much the only effect that skips time for the character, while maintaining the same effect.

Another Fear effect could be the inverse of Radiant Fear, you are knocked back when you get within 3 tiles of any enemy.

Better/different ideas to replace/make uber version of the Unstable Horror:

Shifting Horror: shifts through the attributes of other Horrors every 15% of health lost, based on last damage type taken, to radiant for light(/dark?) damage, Void for temporal, Ethereal for physical or elemental, Arcane for arcane, or Black for other magical damage. The point is to be strong against any enemy it is fighting against. Also gets some bonuses that carry over to all of its forms.

[edge2054]

Hmm... so a fear based confusion kinda. Except that you can still move just have a chance to not be able to use your talents. Another idea was to not let the target attack the caster. Like a you're to terrified to attack that target.

Been playing a lot of Deadspace 2. A dismember power would be nice but I'm not sure a permanent effect like that is appropriate for Tome. I've also considered some sort of horror infections. Like an aura that animates creatures that die with in it's radius as some sorta semi-undead horror hybrids.

Speaking of Deadspace 2. Here's a few random ideas for monsters 'borrowed' (okay stolen) from that game for those that haven't played it.

Pregnants - These monsters basically have a bunch of little monsters living inside of them. When you kill them the little monsters swarm you (in deadspace you can dismember the pregnants to prevent it from releasing it's swarm).

The Pack - Extremely fragile (one shot) monsters. But they're quick and like the name implies they hunt in packs. So for a Tome monster this could be a group of very low hit point mobs with (very) high global or move speed. Would be more interesting with the randomized starting actor speed idea implemented so they didn't all go at once.

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An idea borrowed from Aliens.

Egg Layer - A horror that lays eggs which will hatch after a few turns producing another type of horror. So the player must decide to either kill the layer or kill the eggs before they hatch.

Also more bursting mobs would be fun like the sandworms that explode. Maybe something could be done with that.

One more semi-random thought. A generic horror racial tree might be good to give some variance with in horror types as was done for humanoids. I'll have to think on that.

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Another talent idea, kinda. A reverse knockback timed effect that slowly pulls the character towards the horror. Some sort of compulsion effect that draws the player in. A teleport that summons the target to the horror would be good too. Put those anchoring amulets to good use.

[lukep]

Dismemberment sounds awesome, but...somewhat inconsistent with other effects. I would imagine it as applying one of four effects randomly, dismembered right arm, dismembered left arm, dismembered left leg, and dismembered right leg. Losing your right arm would lose you your mainhand weapon, your left your offhand weapon, shield, or two handed weapon, and each of your legs would halve your movement speed (additively stacking) as well as "disarming" your boots. They could be ended early by healing yourself for 20% or so of your health, which would affect both your normal health and all dismemberments fully.

A possible name for your pulling/compulsion effect is "morbid fascination" to keep it in theme.

For the Pregnants, have them suicide automatically if they get a turn below 10% health without releasing their monsters, otherwise release several weak mobs on death.

The Pack would require unique AI (or just a short range targeted teleport, though I don't like that as much) that would get them to surround you, even if the one that is fighting you would be blocking the path of the others. eg. they should surround you if they come from the north and you stand at position 1, but not if you stand at 2. The randomized starting energy would not be required for these mobs, because it is most noticeable when you are faster than the enemies. Also, make the trap immune? so they don't end up killing themselves all of the time. Could also make them (very) annoying by giving them evasion.

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.#p#.
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Another idea for a type of Horror:

Empathic Horror: group of 5 or so melee fighting Horrors, with +resistances and damage for each one of the group that is alive. Each individual is based on one element, having 90 or 100% resist and 20-100 melee damage of that type. They also grant the group +(10-50) melee projection damage and (20-60)% resistance to that specific damage type. I don't know which talents should be open to these Horrors, but having all of them would be too powerful. There can't be two of the same damage type in a group.

[jotwebe]

A teleport that summons the target to the horror would be good too.

Bone Grab from the corruptions/bone tree pretty much does that, and would fit pretty well with the more physical horror types. It gives pinning for extra fun.

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[[Grab a target and teleport it to your side, pinning it there with a bone rising from the ground for %d turns.
		The bone will also deal %0.2f physical damage.
		The damage will increase with your Magic stat.]]

Could be reskinned for tentacles, too.

Some more ideas:

Horrifying Visage (or something similar): timed effect with long cooldown that does mental damage every turn the target can see the horror. Arcane Eye is not advised

Aura of Terror: All enemies in range take damage each turn, but the less the farther out they are. Also, a weak (1-square) knockback effect. So in principle it would lead to the horror herding its victim into a dead end, where it then dies of fright if the the horror doesn't get it. Sorta like a graded tidal wave.

Unhinged, Deranged, Cackling: Each of the effects has a low chance per turn to cause one of the others, making them possibly difficult to get rid of. The idea is that they'd not be all that bad, but that they'd sort of "block" your wild infusion, since each usage would only get rid of one effect. You shouldn't be stuck with madness forever, so maybe the turn counter each starts with should be one lower every time they spawn a new affliction. So far they don't do anything, so we could add another low chance per turn for actual effects like confusion, stun, daze or silence (babbling nonsense, rather).

Mental Afflictions: Depression (reduce Willpower), Mania (reduce Cunning), and something that reduces Magic. Could also be caused by the above...

[Canderel]

Please don't implement damage shift. If you must make it a % of current hp not max, so a good 2nd move for a horror when he's been damaged, but if the player is on low life it doesn't help him that much.

[edge2054]

Yeah, I mispoke earlier Chandrel. The idea was that if the Horror is at 50% health and the Player at 90% the player would be at 50% and the Horror 90%. If the Horror was at 90% and the player 10% nothing would happen. I want it to be a scary power but ultimately one incapable of killing on it's own.

If it worked when the horrors life was greater then the players I'd just use something like the blood spell that leeches life (except maybe with a bigger leech percent).

Great ideas jotwebe Especially love the debuffs that lead to other debuffs.

[jotwebe]

How about some stationary horrors?

Uad'thoral: (Horror/Gloom)
"A twisted mass of thorn-covered scrub, rustling and shivering."
spiked, gloom, summons shadows, dark tendrils

Bonetree: (Horror/Corrupted)
"A bone-pale tree-like shape, horribly alive."
vimsense, leech, horrying visage, bone spear, bone grab

Pustulant Mass: (Horror/Corrupted)
"A cancerous, oozing mass of diseased flesh, pulsing in a painful, unnatural rhythm."
vimsense, leech, virulent disease, blood boil, catalepsy, acid blood, aura of terror

Man-Shroom: (Horror/Psionic)
"A sickly, bulbous shape, vaguely reminiscent of the humanoid it once was."
hallucination, mortal terror, call of terror, knockback, confusion

[edge2054]

Just had a general monster idea to increase size category usage. Some halfling sized horrors with grappling attacks would make the +size category items more meaningful.

[marvalis]

Not quite sure if this belongs here, but what about a horror that just scares you? No damage, and it disappears after scaring you (invisibility + flee + walk trough walls). Returns every few turns (~80 turns?).

Scare would not do any damage, but would disable you for one turn and add some special effects. It could give you blurred vision for two turns (like during confusion, but different), play a nice heart pump sound-bite for e few seconds after a scream, and you run in fear for one turn (uncontrolled movement, like confusion).

With invisibility detection and arcane damage you can kill these, but it is not needed. Since they walk trough walls this should be hard (the AI should exploit this). I imagine they teleport to the player before they scare you (ideally they would come trough the wall) so you would not see them comming.

[edge2054]

Had an idea last night for void horrors.

Echoes From the Void - Timed Effect lasting X turns. Each time the timed effect ticks the target must make a mental save or suffer X mind and resource damage.