...and now I'm imagining a psi-powered necromancer. You start by binding dead souls to your service (if they have what it takes to use psi, they ought to have what it takes to be affected by it) and then mashing them together and/or empowering them so that they have enough power to do things on their own.
Call it a soulbinder. You have two resources - psi energy and bound souls. Each soul that you acquire takes a bit of your max energy just to keep control of (like a sustain). You have some powers that function more or less like normal psi powers except that they get more powerful as you have more souls. You have other powers that are quite strong, but actually cost you souls (including things like consuming a soul for energy, summoning the soul as a temporary allied undead, and spending it on a significant blast effect of some sort). Finally, there'd be a tree for a bone golem, that you could invest souls in. Of course, invested souls still require upkeep, and they don't boost your powers anymore, but the more of them in your little construction, the more powerful it is. You also get one desperation power, at the top of that tree of "crack the seals" - kills the golem, loses all the souls that were in it (releasing your investments) and deals a *large* amount of damage in an area immediately around the golem. The golem tree would be initially locked.
The trick with this class is balance. You have one strictly limited resource - your max energy cap. You have a couple of moderately annoying to recharge resources - your current energy, and current souls on hand. You can play it like a mage, using bound souls to juice up your attack powers, and spending the souls on one or two carefully chosen powers as a panic button. You can play it like a summoner, walk around as fully invested in souls as you can, and have energy be nothing more than the resource that you spend to get the resource that you need. You can play it like a melee psionic - have much of your power invested in sustains, and most of the rest invested in souls that boost those sustains, with just enough energy left over to run whatever utility powers you feel that you need.
Invoke the Bound Soul: costs 1 soul. Creates a useful temporary ghostly ally.
Feed on the Bound Soul: costs 1 soul. Regains a significant amount of HP.
Drink the Bound Soul: costs 1 soul. Regains a moderate amount of energy.
Expend the Bound Soul: costs 1 soul. Deals significant damage and debuff to a 3x3 area
Winning acceptance as undead.
Moderator: Moderator
Re: Winning acceptance as undead.
I swear to god if someone suggests having a pet aboleth in a jar...
on topic: An interesting idea without all the psi stuff muddling everything up.
on topic: An interesting idea without all the psi stuff muddling everything up.
Re: Winning acceptance as undead.
Actually, having a pet aboleth in a jar sounds pretty entertaining, now that you mention it. Hmmm...
New class: Binder. Basically, uses wards and sigils of some sort to bind otherworldly horrors, and then uses those horrors for power. Has a resource - restraint - that tracks how well he's holding said bound horrors. As his restraint goes down, his horror-wileding powers become more powerful, cover larger areas, and possibly start losing precision or developing negative side effects. Every time you use a power that costs restraint, there's a chance (starting at 0, increasing as your restraint goes down) of failure. Failure has... effects. Based on willpower (resource pools and power of restraint abilities), magic(because when you aren't using restraint, you're using mana), and cunning(finesse on restraint abilities)
Tree: Bind the Horrific
- Bind Horror: you get a free point in this. Sustain. Every power that costs restraint also requires that you have this power sustained. Takes a few turns to activate. Any sustains that cost restraint are automatically unsustained when this is unsustained. Long cooldown. Failing a restraint check causes this to become unsustained and summons a horrific creature nearby (hostile to you). Higher levels of this do good things for your restraint pool (increase size or regen or something).
- Horror Lash: Basic ranged attack. Deals solid damage, moderate-to-high restraint cost, damage increasing by will and percentage of restraint exhausted. No cooldown, but you wouldn't want to use it too many times in a row.
- Horrific Infusion: Sustain. Gives you a nice set of buffs, but drains restraint over time.
- Hurl Horror: Throws your bound horror like a bomb. Unsustains Bind Horror, deals significant AOE damage to an area not all that far away (you can throw it far enough to be outside of the blast radius, but not by but so much) and summons a horror to the center of the blast radius that's actively hostile to everyone. Basically, this is a last-ditch power to use when you're out of options and your restraint is dangerously low - hurl for damage and distraction, then run away to rebuild.
The basic feel of this class is one of taking risks. As long as you have a horror bound, you're really quite strong, but you can't use them too much without risking release - at which point you are suddenly quite weak, with a powerful enemy nearby. Essentially all of your attack powers are horror-based. Once that's gone, what you have left are utility, transport, and defensive abilities - the stuff you need in order to run and hide long enough for your powers to come off cooldown so that you can bind another horror.
New class: Binder. Basically, uses wards and sigils of some sort to bind otherworldly horrors, and then uses those horrors for power. Has a resource - restraint - that tracks how well he's holding said bound horrors. As his restraint goes down, his horror-wileding powers become more powerful, cover larger areas, and possibly start losing precision or developing negative side effects. Every time you use a power that costs restraint, there's a chance (starting at 0, increasing as your restraint goes down) of failure. Failure has... effects. Based on willpower (resource pools and power of restraint abilities), magic(because when you aren't using restraint, you're using mana), and cunning(finesse on restraint abilities)
Tree: Bind the Horrific
- Bind Horror: you get a free point in this. Sustain. Every power that costs restraint also requires that you have this power sustained. Takes a few turns to activate. Any sustains that cost restraint are automatically unsustained when this is unsustained. Long cooldown. Failing a restraint check causes this to become unsustained and summons a horrific creature nearby (hostile to you). Higher levels of this do good things for your restraint pool (increase size or regen or something).
- Horror Lash: Basic ranged attack. Deals solid damage, moderate-to-high restraint cost, damage increasing by will and percentage of restraint exhausted. No cooldown, but you wouldn't want to use it too many times in a row.
- Horrific Infusion: Sustain. Gives you a nice set of buffs, but drains restraint over time.
- Hurl Horror: Throws your bound horror like a bomb. Unsustains Bind Horror, deals significant AOE damage to an area not all that far away (you can throw it far enough to be outside of the blast radius, but not by but so much) and summons a horror to the center of the blast radius that's actively hostile to everyone. Basically, this is a last-ditch power to use when you're out of options and your restraint is dangerously low - hurl for damage and distraction, then run away to rebuild.
The basic feel of this class is one of taking risks. As long as you have a horror bound, you're really quite strong, but you can't use them too much without risking release - at which point you are suddenly quite weak, with a powerful enemy nearby. Essentially all of your attack powers are horror-based. Once that's gone, what you have left are utility, transport, and defensive abilities - the stuff you need in order to run and hide long enough for your powers to come off cooldown so that you can bind another horror.