Artifact & Ego ideas

[lukep]

Amulets of Greater Mastery (+0.05-0.25 to a skill type)

greater ego item, gives a small boost to all talent categories in a group (eg. spells, wild gifts, techniques)
example:

Stralite Amulet of Greater Mastery (+0.20 to Talents/Cursed)

[Burb Lulls]

"fitted leather armour"
Gnostic Raiment (base: reinforced leather armour)
"The product of generations of Halfling research. This suit of leather armour fits Halflings like a second skin, but hangs more awkwardly on the frames of other races."
+5 Physical Save
+10% Mind Resistance Cap
+5 Dexterity (Halflings Only)
+10 Defence (Halflings Only)
+20% Movement Speed (Halflings Only)

"ridged dagger"
Masquerade (base: dwarven-steel dagger)
"Crafted with disarming and parrying in mind, this masterwork dagger can create openings in more ways than one."
+5 Defence
-15% Physical Damage
Allows use of "Disarm", costing 30/60 power.

"luxurious coat"
Yeek-Fur Coat (base: cashmere robe)
"This luxurious garment can keep you toasty warm, at the cost of countless Yeek minds telepathically screaming at you. A reasonable trade-off?"
+30% Cold Resistance
+15% Cold Resistance Cap
-30 Mental Save
Can't be worn by Yeeks

"bone sword"
Boneblade (base: steel longsword)
"Originally designed as a necromancer's tool to aid in preparing skeletons for reanimation, this sword can scythe through bone in a manner other blades struggle to match."
+10 APR
+40% Damage Vs. Skeletons
+20% Damage Vs. Bone Giants

Was going to try coding them, but I don't want to push my Frankencoding luck

[Grey]

Amulets of Greater Mastery (+0.05-0.25 to a skill type)

greater ego item, gives a small boost to all talent categories in a group (eg. spells, wild gifts, techniques)
example:

Stralite Amulet of Greater Mastery (+0.20 to Talents/Cursed)

Y'know, I'd personally say get rid of all current mastery amulets and replace them with these. Each amulet could have variant masteries across each of the sub-talent trees, with perhaps two or three high numbers, and the rest low numbers. I'd suggest having the name be something on the lines of "Voratun Amulet of <foo> Mastery", with the detail in the description. Foo = Temporal / Corruptive / Astute / Accursed / Heavenly / Wild / Mental / Spellcraft / Combat / Racial. Oh, and they should be fairly rare of course.

[edge2054]

I'd organize them differently then this for the sake of game balance.

For instance we could look at talent groups across multiple classes with similar effects. As an example an amulet of foresight might give Chronomancy and Divination Mastery. An amulet of expert striking could give mastery to Shield Offense, Two-Handed Cripple, Pugilism, and Dual-Weapon Attack. An amulet of marksmanship could give bonuses to the Bow and Sling trees. Amulet of Subterfuge could give bonuses to Stealth and Phantasm. And so on and so forth.

The idea being amulets of mastery would serve the purpose they do now but the odds of finding one useful for you would be much higher.

[lukep]

If "amulets of mastery" are going to be organized according to similar effects, they could give both talent masteries and related bonuses to stats as well. Expert striking could give +accuracy and +critical rate, activating for perfect strikes, Foresight could give +light and +infravision, activating for mapping and detection, Subterfuge could give +stealth and +critical damage, activating for invisibility, and Marksmanship could give +ranged damage, activating for something as well. This would change the role of the amulets somewhat, making them give you the attributes of the amulet, and making them at least somewhat useful to all classes. On second thought, what I'm describing is much more powerful than other amulets, these might be artifact level, and edge's interpretation could be the ego items.

[lukep]

Here's a group of Greater Ego Amulets, in the theme of those suggested above. All are shown at Voratun Amulet level, with other base types being weaker. It is incomplete, but should illustrate the idea well.

Amulet of Striking
+12 physical power, +12 accuracy, +4% physical critical rate
+0.20 mastery to: Techniques/2 hand weapons, Techniques/2 hand maiming, Techniques/Shield Offence, Techniques/Dual Weapons, Techniques/Dual Techniques, Techniques/Pugilism, Techniques/Finishing Moves, Techniques/Unarmed Discipline, Cunning/Dirty Fighting, Cunning/Lethality, Wild Gift/Summoning (melee), Divine/Combat, Cursed/Slaughter, Chronomancy/Temporal Combat, Psionic/Psi-Fighting.
Activates for Perfect Strikes (level 3) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Knowledge
+2 Light Radius, +5 infravision, +10 see invisible
+0.20 mastery to: Spell/Divination, Cursed/Endless Hunt, Cursed/Punishments, Chronomancy/Paradox, Chronomancy/Timeline Threading, Chronomancy/Time Travel, Chronomancy/Spacetime Weaving, Psionic/Focus, Psionic/Mental Discipline.
Activates for Detection (like the wand) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Shadows
-2 Light Radius, +6 Infravision, +15 Stealth power.
+0.20 mastery to: (talent categories that rely on hiding/stealth)
Activates for Invisibility (10 power, 10 turns) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Protection
+5 defence, +5 armour, +7% resist all
+0.20 mastery to: (Talents that shield/protect from damage)
Activates for Evasion (level 4) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Recovery
+1.00 HP/round, +1.00 Stamina/round, +0.25 mana/round
+0.20 mastery to: (Talents that recover health, resources, and status effects)
Activates for Providence (level 3) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Self
+0.40 mastery to: (All racial and the most defining tree of some classes [eg. Magical Combat] )

Amulet of Specialization
+0.40 mastery to (all talents that are level 10-22, instead of 0-12)

Amulet of Motion
+10% movement speed, +30 encumbrance limit, -10% fatigue
+0.20 mastery to: (Talents based around escape/mobility)
Activates for Teleportation (level 5) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Marksmanship
+100% projectile speed (like ammo of the wind), +20 accuracy, +15 Physical damage (ranged)
+0.20 mastery to: (Talents based around bows/slings)
Activates for ??? costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Ideally, each talent tree would be covered by or shoehorned into one amulet category, although this would require either more amulets, or broader definitions.

[Final Master]

Amulet of Striking is better than the artifact ring that already does that, and better by a lot.

Amulet of Knowledge is bad because it overrides itself; infravision doesn't work if you have a light radius.

Amulet of Shadows I find to be just like the current Amulet of Mastery (Cunning/Stealth) with some other ego slapped on; there is only one tree that runs anything to do with stealth, and it's the stealth tree.

Amulet of Recovery I find would be bad as talents that recover resources, health, ect are mostly 1 talent out of 4 in a tree, and are EXTREMELY deverse trees, depending on your idea of recovering. This would fall into a rawtlvl only tree, a corruption tree, a mana tree, an EQ tree, an anti magic tree, and so on; way way way too broad with most likely not that much of an effect to the power of them via mastery.

Amulet of Specialization would be up to some rather high debate on to what is the classes' 'defining' tree, if they even have one. Also, not all race talents are effective level, quiet a few run off of raw.

Amulet of Motion is the one that I see making the most sense and functioning the best, although an activate that is a talent at lvl 5? Don't you think that's rather high? Maybe something like 1 because teleport doesn't change much at all from 1-3 but gets added utility later [which... isn't the kind of utility I would want from an activate, but that's just me].

Amulet of Marksmenship I find to also be one of the better ones as it's pretty well defined. I see it effecting 3 trees and giving a boost that doesn't necessarily shoe horn the ego to just 2 classes. Though, why all of them need an activate, or a charge of 80/80 with cost of 80 is just not needed.

In short, I think you have the right idea - 1) pick a range of abilities and give them a boost, while also making some sort of stat increase that classes other than the ones that the mastery boost would best apply to, to help nudge the amulet into use for them ; 2) Make them thematic ; 3) Make them worth while.

I love symmetry, but you don't have to make them all so similar; that will just make them boring as you won't tell them apart without actually looking. Good job though, keep at it, I like where this is heading.

[lukep]

Thanks for the feedback, some revisions, marked in bold

Amulet of Striking
+5 physical damage (melee), +8 accuracy, +5% critical damage multiplier
+0.20 mastery to: Techniques/2 hand weapons, Techniques/2 hand maiming, Techniques/Shield Offence, Techniques/Dual Weapons, Techniques/Dual Techniques, Techniques/Pugilism, Techniques/Finishing Moves, Techniques/Unarmed Discipline, Cunning/Dirty Fighting, Cunning/Lethality, Wild Gift/Summoning (melee), Divine/Combat, Cursed/Slaughter, Chronomancy/Temporal Combat, Psionic/Psi-Fighting.
Activates for Perfect Strikes (level 3) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Knowledge
+2 Light Radius, +10 See Through Stealth, +10 see invisible
+0.20 mastery to: Spell/Divination, Cursed/Endless Hunt, Cursed/Punishments, Chronomancy/Paradox, Chronomancy/Timeline Threading, Chronomancy/Time Travel, Chronomancy/Spacetime Weaving, Psionic/Focus, Psionic/Mental Discipline.
Activates for Detection (like the wand) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Shadows
-2 Light Radius, +6 Infravision, +15 Stealth power.
+0.20 mastery to: Cunning/Stealth, Cunning/Trapping, Cunning/Survival, Spell/Phantasm, Cursed/Darkness, Cursed/Dark Figure
Activates for Invisibility (10 power, 10 turns) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Protection
+5 defence, +5 armour, +7% resist all
+0.20 mastery to: (Talents that shield/protect from damage)
Activates for Evasion (level 4) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Recovery
+1.00 HP/round, +1.00 Stamina/round, +0.25 mana/round
+0.20 mastery to: Techniques/Combat Veteran, Spells/Nature, Spells/Meta(?), Wild Gift/Call of the Wild, Divine/Light, Corruption/Sanguisuge, Cursed/Dark Sustenance, Psionic/Voracity
Activates for Providence (level 3) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Self REMOVED
+0.40 mastery to: (All racial and the most defining tree of some classes [eg. Magical Combat] )

Amulet of Specialization
+0.40 mastery to: Techniques/Superiority, Techniques/Battle Tactics, Techniques/Warcries, Techniques/Bloodthirst, Spells/Wildfire, Spells/Stone, Spells/Ice, Spells/Storm, Spells/Advanced Golemancy, Divine/Glyphs, Chronomancy/Paradox, Chronomancy/Timeline Threading, Psionic/Focus, Psionic/Augmented Mobility

Amulet of Motion (more field control as well)
+10% movement speed, +30 encumbrance limit, -10% fatigue
+0.20 mastery to: Techniques/Field Control, Spells/Conveyance, Cursed/Force of Will, Chronomancy/Speed Control, Psionic/Augmented Mobility
Activates for Teleportation (level 3) costing 80 energy out of 80/80

Amulet of Marksmanship
+100% projectile speed, +20 accuracy, +15 Physical damage (ranged)
+0.20 mastery to: Techniques/Archery-Bows, Techniques/Archery-Slings, Techniques/Archery Training, Techniques/Archery Prowess
Activates for Steady Shot (Level 1) costing 10 energy out of 10/10

My goal for these amulets is to make wearing them give you a decent amount of proficiency in it, without overpowering them for the classes they fit the best with. For example, a mage with an Amulet of Marksmanship should be able to shoot a bow/sling with decent proficiency, but it shouldn't be an instant win item for a slinger.

I like having an activation on them because it helps to define the amulet, and give some power to classes lacking the talent trees, but them all costing 80 out of 80 was just a shortcut, as I'm not sure how they should each be balanced by recharge.

EDIT: exchanged Corruption/Vim for Corruption/Sanguisuge in Amulet of Recovery, I confused the two trees.

[shooth]

<footwear> of SuperPosition
+10 resist time
While wearing the footwear, has the following affect:
Movement in any direction may cause (say 1/5 chance?) the wearer to "phase" an additional step or two in the same (general) direction.

[Hedrachi]

amulet, cloak, or body armor of projectile defense
12.5% chance when hit by a projectile, to increase ranged defense by 1000 for 4+material level turns (or to do some other thing which effectively tells all projectiles to ignore you for 4+ turns)

[lukep]

Greater Ego "Cloak of Invisibility" arcane powered
+5 stealth, +3 infravision, -2 light radius, Activates for Invisibility (power 8 duration 10) costing 100 power out of 100/100

Could also be a ring

Greater Ego/Artifact Shield "Black Shield" ??? powered
Grants an antimagic shield of power (10-15?), -(2-3) mana per turn.

Mana drain instead of arcane disrupting because it can then be used by non-antimagic characters, while still being detrimental to mages.

[Miruko]

Spirit Guardian: an artifact shield with a damage absorbing effect, like "on hit: X damage absorbed over 5 turns", like an automatic shield rune, with his own cooldown. Maybe the possibility to inscribe directly with the favourite shield rune. Also, ever thought about socketed items out of only jewels?

[tiger_eye]

"Rune of Greater Aptitude" artifact: Permanently increase maximum talent level by one for all talents. This cannot be undone, so it permanently uses one inscription slot. For example, this will let you invest a max of 6 (or 11) talent points in a talent instead of the previous max of 5 (or 10).

[lukep]

(weapon) of deceptive skill
10% chance to switch any normal attack for one of the following at 0 cost, level 1, and not resetting their cooldowns:

Universal: Perfect Strike (before attacking),
Any melee: Bleeding Edge, Weapon of Light,
If it is 2 handed: Stunning Blow, Sunder Arms, Sunder Armor, or Death Blow.
If you are dual wielding: Dual Strike or Flurry
If using a shield: Overpower, Assault
If it's a Bow: Piercing Arrow, Dual Arrows, Steady shot, Crippling shot, Pinning shot
If it's a sling: Eye Shot, Inertial Shot, Steady shot, Crippling shot, Pinning shot

Maybe add a few more skills from categories other than Techniques, such as Cursed talents for axes, or Psi talents.

[jotwebe]

stentorian (staff) of the stentor*

+30/40/50/60/70% silence immunity
+4/5/6/7/8 CUN
evocable: Strike at lvl 1/2/2/3/3, costing 12 out of 16/18/20/22/24 power


*Etymology:
From Stentor from Ancient Greek ??????? (Stent?r) + -ian. Stentor was the herald of the Greek forces in the Iliad, noted for his loud voice.