Class idéa: Knight - the sustained summoner!

[Nemesis1]

The Knight would be a different kind of minon master class than the summoner or the nexromancer, as his or her "summons" (men-at-arms) would be sustained abilities. That means that they're not expendable, as the cooldown resulting from them dying would leave the knight weak.

The knight would be designed to fight in a squad together with a Squire and a couple of other suistains. He or she should be an ok hand-to-hand fighter and have access to auras that would strenghten his minions as long as he is near them. This could lead to some interesting tactical decisions, as having all squad members activated at once would leave him with low "power" (magic, stamina or whatever), so it would often be smart to just have on or two sustained men-at-arms activated, and have more power left to do other things. This would also mean that there could be several build options for Knight characters, some could for example focus on putting lots of points into the different types of men-at-arms and on the stat that raises the avalible power while others could focus on other things.

Oh, and I imagine that the Knight should have a conventional (activated) summon too: Peasants. Expendable cannon fodder that can buy the knight some time in an emergency or be used as bait to lure monsters from their lairs. Peasans would desert after a few turns, if they live that long.

All in all, I think the Knight could be a different kind of character that allows for varied play styles. What do you think?

[Zonk]

Reminds me a bit of this: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=4 ... it=captain
except your idea feels more 'magical' if you just summon your troops out of thin air rather than say, recruit them in a town.

[Nemesis1]

Reminds me a bit of this: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=4 ... it=captain
except your idea feels more 'magical' if you just summon your troops out of thin air rather than say, recruit them in a town.

I didn't mean the summoning to be magical lore-wise, I just thought "summonings" would be a good way to implement them being "called to arms", as I imagine it would be swift both for the coder and the player.

[Nemesis1]

Ideas for skills:

Mounted tactics:
-Mounted: Passivly increases the movement speed for you and your men-at-arms
-Joust: Like Rush, but with a different effect upon impact
-Horse Jump: Move just like the chesspiece! (might sound like an controlled phase with very limited options, but it could be made instant at the cost of a rather long cooldown)
-Horse Kick: The concussion temporarily lowers the physicas resistance of your target

Men-at-arms:
-Squire: The most defensive squad mate
-Draft: Summons expendible peasants who aren't sustained but will desert after a while
-Champion: The most offensive squad mate

[NEHZ]

If you want to make it less weird that the knight is summoning his forces out of thin air, you can add an extra aspect to it to explain it.
Example one: the knight shifts time. Basicly you're calling your forces from a different time. This also gives room for temporal spells that manipulate your forces. (which you want if your summons aren't expendable)
Example two: undead. Your knight is a ghost like being (but solid) that cannot rest and calls his comrades from their graves. You can even name your forces as it would be the same guys that you're calling back each time.

Also, it would be interesting if the summoned forces are of the same race as your character.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Yeah, I think the Captain did this way better with hiring companions instead. Of course I did help plan the skills, so I am somewhat biased. I will be updated it to the current version as an addon at some point.

[Nemesis1]

Should the Knight's Men-At-Arms be able to equip weapons and armour? My intuition says no. While it would indeed be cool to give your minions weapons, I think it would be too hard to balance. Either you could totally break the game with the right equipment or ToME4 would be too hard if you don't find what you need/lose the equipment when your minions die/don't bother spending enough time equipping them all. I guess it would also make the Knight much harder to code. As it is now, I don't believe any of my suggestions require any advanced programming to work properly. What do you think?

More thoughts and ideas:

Free extra carrying capacity:
At last you can raise your carrying capacity without feeling that you are wasting vaulable stat points and equipment slots! As I said it will probably be taxing both to code, balance and play with the ability for Men-At-Arms to wear armour and, well, arms. But isn't a Squire supposed to wear your weapons for you? Of course! While the Squire's main function is being a defensive member of your little warband, each point you put into Squire will also raise your encumberance limit! And while the Squire, unlike the activated Peasants and like the other Men-At-Arms, is a sustained skill, the bonus to your weight limit is passive. The Squire is helping you carry your stuff even when he's not in the heat of the battle.




The given way to unlock the knight:
Save a damsel in distress that's about to be sacrificed to cultists!

Dilemma when it comes to deciding if you should battle in a corridor or in an open room:
Usually it's a no brainer. You will often need to fight one foe at a time in a corridor to survive, but when playing the Knight open spaces will have its advantages. As "Horse Jump" moves like the chess piece - one square cardinally then once square diagonally - and without any time passing, you lose the possibility of a swift escape when fighting in a corridor. This also makes the movement of the Horse Jump a bit more realistic, as it then gets to symbolize benefit of horses in open fields. Another reason to fight in the open is that both you and your squad mates will be able to melee the very same foe at the very same time. But while it might be fun to out-flank an enemy in an open room fighting in corridors and other confined spaces still has its advantages. If you fight an enemy in a corridor and your Squire is behind you, you can change place with the Squire to get out of harm's way.

Use horse jump for offence or defence:
Being able to get a couple of squares away from an opponent without wasting a single turn could save your life, provided the skill isn't on cooldown, of course. But there is some risk that it indeed is on cooldown when you need it the most, as it is tempting to use as an offensive technique as well as an emergency exit from at losing battle. Like Rush, Joust doesn't work if you're next to the foe you want to hit. But as "Horse Jump" is instant, you can use it to take a couple of steps back and then charge in one turn!

More tactical synergy:
If you are in a confined space don't want to put "Horse Jump" but still want to joust an adjectant foe, you can use your extra movement speed from "Mounted". If your enemy can't shoot and moves more slowly than you do, perhaps you'll be able to both take a step back and joust without your opponent getting a turn.

Even more tactical synergy:
While the Knight is a better hand-to-hand fighter than the magic and ranged classes, the Knight is worst at close combat of the close combat classes. He or she is rather sturdy and can take quite a beating before biting the dust, the Knight isn't very impressive when it comes to dealing damage. Good teamwork is required to defeat tougher monsters, and doubly so when it comes to tougher monsters with high physical resistance. The Men-At-Arms also deal physical damage, so it's a very fortunate thing that the concussion from "Horse Kick" debuffs the monsters with temporary physical damage vulnerability!

Players are encouraged to play boldly:
While it is probably possible to safely stand back and let your Men-At-Arms risk their lives in many situations, you miss out on many of the Knights advantages by doing so. As I said, your minions deal physical damage but you're the one who can make your enemies take maximum damage from physical attacks with your Horse Kick. Also, your auras won't help your Men-At-Arms unless you're close to them, and as they're all melee fighters, this means you'll have to be close to your enemies too. Being encouraged to fight many enemies at once in open spaces might sound crazy, and sometimes it indeed is a truly bad idea, but the Knight is designed to be able to handle this kind of situation in most cases. As stated above, the Knight can soak up some damage before going down, but and both Mounted and Horse Jump should give the Knight the chance run away and fight another day, if he or she can realises the danger in time. As the Men-At-Arms are mounted too they'll probably follow their retreating leader, but this is an excellent situation to "Draft" a bunch of Peasants. By the time the monsters have eaten up the Peasants, the Knight is hopefully safe.

If you want to make it less weird that the knight is summoning his forces out of thin air, you can add an extra aspect to it to explain it.
Example one: the knight shifts time. Basicly you're calling your forces from a different time. This also gives room for temporal spells that manipulate your forces. (which you want if your summons aren't expendable)
Example two: undead. Your knight is a ghost like being (but solid) that cannot rest and calls his comrades from their graves. You can even name your forces as it would be the same guys that you're calling back each time.

Also, it would be interesting if the summoned forces are of the same race as your character.

While it works like summoing gameplay-wise, lore-wise the Peasants are "drafted" Men-At-Arms are "called to arms".

[Nemesis1]

Yeah, I think the Captain did this way better with hiring companions instead. Of course I did help plan the skills, so I am somewhat biased. I will be updated it to the current version as an addon at some point.

The Captain will also be fun to play, but I think the Knight is easier to code and balance.

However, I don't think the two characters are that simillar really. The Captain feels more like a strategic class while the Knight is a tactical one. At first glance the two classes might appear to play in comparable ways. but if you're playing the Captain you will probably be making a lot of important choices outside of the dungeons while the Knight offers lots of tactical options but few strategic decisions except for how to spend the character points of the build.

By the way, you don't have to be biased just because you came up with ideas for the Captain, because I am in need of ideas for the Knight too and need your help! For example, the Men-At-Arms tree should have four skills but I can only think of three: Draft Peasants, Squire and Champion. The Peasants are cannon fodder, the Squire is tanks for you and the Champion does the heaviest damage, but what should the third Man-At-Arms do? I don't want him to be a shooter or spellcaster, as the theme of the Knight clearly is a little warband of hand-to-hand fighers. All three sustains should cost stamina, and if you want to have all three sustained at the same time as you have an aura up, you should be forced to put lots of points into Willpower to have a large enough pool, and many of your other talents also requires stamina.

What kind of build do you want? Do you want a supportive Knight with lots of Willpower who has all three Men-At-Arms with him or her at the same time? If you focus on just having one or two Men-At-Arms fighting by your side at any given moment, you wouldn't need as much Willpower, or you could use a lot of Willpower healing and buffing your minions while debuffing your enemies. There could really be lots of build options, but as much as you can vary your tactics between different characters, you can vary your tactics within the same game. For example, you mght want to have just one Man-At-Arms sustained when you do the Labyrinth, one who fights for you while you stand back and heal him. If you invested in Willpower you can really heal him a lot, but if you invested more points into strenght you can swap places with him and fight in his stead while he recovers from damage.

The Men-At-Arms should be able to do more things than just damage their foes, btw. The Squire could perhaps have a chance of slowing or disarming his enemies when he hits them. Or maybe he could direct the aggression of the enemy to him, so that his somewhat less stury squad mates don't get hit as much. All in all, I would like the three Men-At-Arms to close combat fighters who all have their specialities, but I don't want them to be totally min-maxed - even though the Champion's main purpose is to deal damage, he should be able to recieve some as well. If they were min maxed, the specific uses of all three would be crystal clear. They should instead be personalities with strenghts and weaknesses. Their behaviour should be a little unpredictable at times (when will they decide to use their different talents?), but not so unpredictable that you don't feel in control of your warband (even though they have talents that they use when they feel like it, them using talents should be pleasant suprises rather than the main reason that you choose to sustain them in a specific situation).

As it is now, I think that the third Woman(?)-At-Arms could be an Assassin that does Area-of-Effect Damage-over-Time physical dam + nature poisoning as her main attack. The AoE attack would not damage you or her other squadmates. This maybe illustrates what I mean with "personalities with strenghts and weaknesses rather than min-maxes". She would be good both at killing lots of weak enemies and keeping greater foes from healing. Even though her enemies would be able to resist the poison/healing reduction effect, it would count as a reason to sustain her, as it would be a constant attack that you can count on her doing over and over. Her using an inscription or talent with cooldown would on the other hand not be something to count on, but "bonus that is nice and gives her personality".

As I see it, the differencfes between the Knight and the Captain are quite big. Even though I haven't tried the Captain class, it seems pretty clear that the Captain isn't designed to be a leader of a hand-to-hand combat warband. What the two classes share is that they lead a small group of non-timed minions and a somewhat similar name.´

When it comes to the name of the class, the Captain could perhaps be renamed Bard or Adventurer (meeting your fellow adventurers in a pub suggests so!) if both classes were to be included in the game. Your class would IMO fit best as a subcategory to Rogue while the Knight should be filed under the Warrior file. Either way, the gameplay of the characters are in my opinion vastly different. One big difference is that the Captain/Bard/Adventurer has to choose his or her minions before going down into a dungeon and that his/her warband can include spellcasters and shooters, which means that the battlefield tactics of the Captain/Bard/Adventurer can be much different.

But I like the Captai/Bard/Adventurer! As much as it differs from Knight it also differs from other classes. I suppose the gameplay would be the closest thing in ToME4 that you can come to playing the with an whole party of RPG adventurers! I think both classes should be included in the game.

What do you folks think? Anyone up to helping me with ideas for the Knight (need more talents, especially meaningfuö auras, and also ideas for the different talents for the Men-At-Arms)?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Eh, no, the Captain is NOT rogue. He is designed to be a warrior type. The name is also quite nice the way it is, thanks. He's a military commander, who leads a band of adventurers he recruits.

But if you want to code up the Knight and have them both available as add ons, nothing wrong with that. The more the merrier, I say.

[jotwebe]

A roguish (wo)man-at-arms sounds good, though I'm not sure the AoE thing fits. Someone specializing in single-target debuffs (stun, a "distract" that reduces def and armour, poisons, bleeding, de-stealth, disarms traps) would fit better.

Alternatively, a herald that does warcry-ish things? Or a medic type that can heal a bit and removes debuffs from you and yours. Would also be a better candidate for AoE flavour wise, say it's alchemical stuff.

As to equipment: how about your guys get the same weapon and armor bonuses you get?