New Race: Undead/Vampire

[Planetus]

One of the most tempting ideas I've had for this game is that of another undead race: Vampires. Vampires are supported in the lore of the game as an even more reasonable player character (i.e. having free will) than skeletons or ghouls, plus there are already custom tiles that look prepared for vampires (though there are also custom tiles for orcs). I'm thinking of vampires as a more mage-appropriate undead race, as game lore says their minds don't decay like other undead (nor do their bodies, but that's another issue). They could also be interpreted from out-of-game lore, as a more rogue-like character: intelligent, fast, agile, but not necessarily magical.

Vampire Race

Stats:
Str +0 Dex +0 Con +0
Will +2 Mag +1 Cun +2
(Or possibly Dex+2, Will+1, Cun+2)

Life 12?
Exp Penalty 40% (less, since their minds aren't decayed? balancing issue?)

Features:
Poison Immunity
Disease Immunity
Resistant to Time Damage (bodies don't decay with time)?
Resistant to Cold Damage (No body heat to sap, bu flesh still freezes)?
Does Not Breathe
NOT Immune to any Mental Effects

Racial Talents:
Vampiric Nature (Passive): All regenerative effects are only (20/30/40/50/60)% effective. All direct healing effects are only (50/60/70/80/90)% effective. Drain life type healing (including melee damage of the drain life type) is (120/1140/160/180/200)% effective. Light resistance is (-100/-85/-60/-45/-30)%. Darkness resistance is (20/40/60/80/100? or 15/30/45/60/85?)%.

Bite (Active): Vampire bites target in melee range, doing (Dex-based? Cun-based?) damage and draining all damage as healing (+benefits from above). Suggest making damage high, but with moderate cooldown time (20+turns?). Higher levels increase damage/reduce cooldown.

Transformation (Active/Sustained): Vampire transforms into a swarm of bats (for x turns?). Movement speed increases by 100%, swarm can move through enemies and some blockages (trees). Swarm gains +(high) defense (and damage resistance? chance to avoid attacks?), but cannot attack. Any enemy the bats are on top of (or just displace) takes bite damage and heals the vampire per the Bite ability, but without activating it's cooldown.

Vampiric Charm (Active/Passive): Either activated ability or an addition to Bite. The vampire can now charm enemies for X turns, either with a % chance on Bite (if Passive), or with a high success rate (Will-based) as an activated power.

[Sirrocco]

A few thoughts on balance.
- Vampiric Nature would have to be a forced point - otherwise no one would take the first one, at least until they had the generics saved up to really crank the tree in general.
- Not sure how splitting up the healing mod goes. Regen has one effect, heal has another, shield has a third (ie, no effect) and drain a fourth. Also, I seem to recall that undead can't use infusions. Would that remain the case here?
- How magical are they? Would they be permitted to go antimagic? Do they need the cloak?
- Bite's not a damage-dealer. It's a heal that needs to land in order to kick in, with a damage rider on it. It would need to have cost/power/cooldown set appropriately. In particular, it's not going to do moderate-to-heavy damage as compared to the other stuff that you could be doing with the turn, unless you give it a cooldown that's nigh-ridiculous. Also, giving it the heal aspect is easy - just have it deal drain damage.
- Transformation seems awfully powerful It's a panicbutton flee-through-enemies-rather-fast that also makes you significantly harder to kill, deals damage, and heals you. That's a bit much. Also, even more abusable with certain classes (mindslayer with the auras and the autoattacking weapon comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others)
- Vampiric Charm also looks very powerful.

So... basically, it looks like you threw a ton of awesome into the pot, with relatively little balance to it. What are the drawbacks, here?
- Admittedly, the first talent is a bit harsh at first, but if you pump 5 points into it and avoid regen (which you can afford to without real problems), the overall effect is that you're out 5 generics, you have immunity to darkness (or nearly so, depending), your drain healing is cranked (which wouldn't usually matter, but you can exploit it, and it'll make vampire a favorite for any class who happens to have any) and you take a noticeable but tolerable malus to your light resistance. After that, Bite sounds pretty strong, Transformation is just silly, and Vampiric Charm looks reasonably solid as well (though making it passive would at least mean that it wasn't dependable, which would trim it down a decent bit)

Oh, and as a different side note, I'd encourage you to think about how the Vampire inescapable inherents would interact with the Cursed inescapable inherents. There's already a class in the game (maybe 2? Do Doomed get it as well) that starts play with 50% health recovery for the most part, and an inherent ability to recover HP over time by killing its enemies. Where exactly that fits in on the heal vs drain vs regen thing becomes pertinent.

[Planetus]

-Vampiric nature would have to be a forced point, yes. I know that's been done before with the cursed, so I assume the mechanic is still in this build.
-Yes, I'm thinking vampires still can't use infusions, but some class spells and abilities do immediate healing or regeneration boosts. Those are what this penalty would effect. Shielding would still work the same.
-Going anti-magic would be left up to the developers. I'm thinking they could be allowed so (if other undead can be, I've never tried it), but abandoning both infusions AND runes would be a basically suicidal idea.
-The cloak! I had meant to mention that, thanks. If the vampires still use the same undead origin, I'm thinking the cloak could be thrown away. It's also possible that the vampire race could have a separate origin (more work, maybe done later).
-Bite would be drain life damage, thus benefiting from the Vampire's bonus on drain life, yes. As for balancing, I'm thinking it would have to heal a good bit, since it would be the most reliable form of healing a vampire could get (no infusions, reduced benefits from spells and most class abilities). Given the tendency for this game to have spike damage (random enemy suddenly does 90% of your health as damage), I want the healing part of it to be high. Maybe it drains even more than it does damage, I don't know. I don't think 20 turns, or maybe 40 turns, or something on that scale, would be so low as to unbalance the game. It could basically only be used once per most battles, including more than a few boss battles. Ok, 20 may be on the low end, but I don't want it to be 100+ turns that represent the truly LONG cooldowns in this game. I don't see much point in making it much longer than any battle would last, as the character could just Rest until it cools down if need be.
-Looking at it, transformation is pretty powerful. Maybe it comes with reduced stats? Definitely reduced damage on the bite ability. And you're right, it would have to negate passive damage sources like auras or telekinetically wielded weapons. I'm thinking it would probably end up as an activated ability, lasting something like 3-5 turns (with +100% movement speed and no actions but movement, that's 6-10 moves), and would have a REALLY long cooldown (100+turns minimum), which is more significant for this ability than for Bite since it's a fleeing ability.
-Vampiric Charm would all depend on the ultimate balance. Yes, making it a % chance on an already slowish-to-recover ability would make it much weaker. Also, giving it a not too high charm rating (I don't know how that works, mental save?), ineffective on boss-type creatures, and/or having a long cooldown would also help balance it.
-Vampiric nature could be balanced by messing with the numbers. Maybe the resistances should max at +/-50, or +50/-100? The healing nerfs, draining bonus, and potential class abilities is an interesting point. I don't want any race/class combo to become an automatic win, but I'm not afraid to let some be automatic losses. Those already exist and, I think, to good effect. I would like there to be a natural attraction to certain classes that get draining abilities, though it has to be balance, you're right. I think a vampire with a drain-life weapon (I know there's at least one, probably more) and a class with drain life abilities may come out pretty strong, but I think it should be, at least as long as it's not TOO strong.

Overall, I wanted all the racial features to be things that people actually wanted to invest in and have a use for, as I know I, at least, see little use for about 1/2 the racial abilities out there. As for overall ideas, I've tried to pull inspiration from standard vampiric lore, thus the transforming into bats and charming victims. I leave all balancing up to whoever would eventually implement such a race. I won't pretend to be very good at it myself.

[bricks]

With Bite being a melee talent, and the rest of the abilities just sort of neutral, it doesn't really feel like a mage-oriented race. The Transformation ability is technically unfeasible unless you meant to move through entities like Probability Travel. The penalties to healing don't really feel right, and the bonus to drain damage only really affects a few talents, one artifact, and the Bloodcaller ring. Light resistance penalty is really cruel, it basically makes Luminous Horrors into game-enders.

Here are a few abilities I think would work better:

Glamour, takes the place of the cloak. Must be sustained or friendlies turn aggressive. Negates some of the positive and negative aspects of being a vampire while active.

Bite, a simple drain-life talent. Melee range, but doesn't use weapon damage. Bite will deactivate Glamour when active. Should recover a significant amount of health, but you can only bite an enemy once (or again after a very long time).

Charm, makes an enemy non-aggressive. They won't attack, just stand about until the effect ends. Checks against mental save. Multiple enemies can be affected at once. You must have Glamour activated to use Charm, and any Charm effects will cancel if Glamour is deactivated.

Which leaves room for one more talent. Could be a passive that grants something like Magic when Glamour is off, and Cunning when it is on.

[PureQuestion]

I can say right now they'd be banned from infusions, antimagic, and wilder classes. They might be able to ignore the cloak, not sure.

[Sirrocco]

Silly (and mildly off-topic) thought... if you're strong enough defensively, making your escorts hostile (at least temporarily) might actually be a good thing. Means that they'll hang around you a bit better, and they'll be targeting you (who won't fight back) rather than the enemies (who will happily lay into them). Sure, they'll take potshots at you, but as long as you didn't load up on thorns damage....

I like the Glamour idea as an inherent power, not necessarily tied to any of your skills - like the Yeek ID ability.

Alternately, you could have increasing levels in Glamour give you... something? Possibly give them some significant racial disadvantages that Glamor cancels, bit by bit?

[Planetus]

Maybe make the base penalties and advantages of vampiric nature inherent, and then make glamour reduce the penalties some as it is increased. Something like:
BASIC
Light resistance -50%
Dark resistance +50%
Regeneration -70%
Healing -50%
Drain life +50%

Glamour (sustain, 0 cost, 0 cooldown, can only be used out of sight) (x/5)
Light resistance +5%/level
Dark resistance +5%/level
Regeneration +5%/level
Healing +5%/level
Drain life +5%/level
Potentially passive creatures see you as an ally. Automatically deactivated by Bite, but not other attacks.

Bite, a simple drain-life talent. Melee range, but doesn't use weapon damage. Bite will deactivate Glamour when active. Should recover a significant amount of health, but you can only bite an enemy once. Moderate cooldown.

Charm, makes all enemies in radius X non-aggressive to the caster. They won't attack, just stand about until the effect ends. Checks against mental save. You must have Glamour activated to use Charm, and any Charm effects will cancel if Glamour is deactivated. Attacks won't break charm? Attacking one charmed target won't break charm on others?


And yes, luminous horrors and anorthils will be a bane to this character type. They should be.

[bricks]

Yeah, attacks should break Charm, or at least reduce the duration. Luminous Horrors are already a primary obstacle in reaching the Fortress; I don't think that should be any worse. Also, no other race has innate resistances or weaknesses, so it might be an odd time to set that precedent.

[Planetus]

Both skeletons and ghouls have innate status immunities and/or resistances. These include damaging statuses like poison and bleeding. I realize damage resistances would be something else, but I think as long as they're balanced it's workable. And, if the precedent is ever set, is any time better than any other time?

As for luminous horrors, my opinion is that they're overpowered as it is, especially traveling in packs of three like they tend to do now.

[bricks]

Immunities aren't resistances, as you said. That's a pretty important distinction.

[Planetus]

In all honesty, I'd say negative damage resistance are more significant than positive ones, given the number of damage types in this game.

[Szragodesca]

Seeing as my Bulwark was obliterated by luminous horrors before he could even see them, the innate resistance thing sounds iffy. . . I think you'd be better off making it a penalty for activating the sustain that unlocks some of your vampiric powers. Tap into powers, gain vulnerability. Sublimate your vampiric desires, no vulnerability.

Shalore Archmages go to that place up in space when they start, then they go to the normal Shalore starting areas. Why not make Vampires start out in some training crypt where they initially choose talents as normal upon "awakening", but by completing a couple of short lore quests given by members of their coven/clan they are given the innate vampire talent tree for free, and the sustain talent. This being the sustain which awakens your bloodlust and allows you to use the talents in the racial tree. If you're worried about people complaining that they already spent their generic point(s) by the time they unlock the Vampire tree, give them 1 rank of the first ability too.

Granted Talent
Vampire's Gift: (Sustained) The sustain which carries most of the benefits (darkness resistance, leech boost, maybe an increase to physical stats with higher ranks in Vampiric Essence [see below], to help those poor melee classes). Activating it makes your vampire powers stronger and may make you harder to kill, but it makes friendlies aggressive, makes you weak to light damage, and decreases the effects of good/nature (heals and regen) when active.

To make this more sensible, I'd say (if possible) have it activate a 1-turn beneficial effect at 1/3 the power of the sustain, then when that falls it activates one at 2/3 the power, then when that falls it activates the sustain. Makes your powers less of a knee-jerk reaction and more of a planned usage thing.

Another interesting thing would be, like an arcane user wearing an antimagic item having their spells fizzle, make a vampire wearing or wielding an item that adds Light damage on hit, or when hit, deal that damage to you when your Gift is active. Might be too much, but would make someone go "huh? OW!" and I'd be happy for no apparent reason.

Talent Tree
Bite/Feed: (Active) Much like what bricks wrote. Using Bite will activate the sustain which awakens your vampiric talents, but does not benefit from them as the activation check and effect comes after the bite. (makes sense that if you leap from suppressing your powers to feeding, that you won't be feeding at full power if you didn't take the time to awaken them) If, however, the sustain is already active, then the Bite talent will gain the benefit of the boost.

Charm: (Active) Again, much like what bricks wrote. Makes an enemy non-aggressive, checks against mental save, I'd say at rank 3 or 4 it reduces the victim's mental save against your bite ability by 5 for each following rank as well. (because most vampires charm their food first, to make it less spirited)

Vampiric Essence: (Passive) Improves the power of your Vampiric Gift while active. (insert list of appropriate modifiers)

Mutable Form: (Active) Transforms the Vampire into one of 3 forms based on where it is targeted. Duration/range of each form increases with Willpower.

• If the Vampire targets himself he turns to Mist, losing the ability to attack or cast spells, gains +10% to Resist All (per rank), and is unaffected by some traps/floors. In exchange, his movement is slowed by 50%. This form lasts X turns. (longest)
  If the Vampire targets an empty space he transforms into a cloud of bats and flies swiftly to that location, performing a Bite attack at 3% power (per rank) on each opponent in the line. (basically a targeted phase door with no randomness) Increases Cooldown of this Talent by X. (as a drawback to using it for heal and escape in one)
  If the Vampire targets an opponent he transforms into a great Wolf, gaining a boost to Dexterity, the Disengage and Rush Talents, and leaps upon his foe. (not sure if there's a mechanic for shapechanging yet, I can't live long enough to unlock more stuff) This form lasts X turns.

[Planetus]

I like the idea of Vampire's Gift being a sustain needed to benefit from the rest of the racial abilities (maybe even including things like no breathing and poison resistance). It should also be the first talent in the tree, so get rid of Vampiric Essence and move the rest of the talents up one.

I don't like Mutable Form's target self ability. It sounds pretty useless. When would you want to slow down, loose all ability to act, AND gain defensive bonuses. It seems to be that you'd either want to run, fight, or hide. This doesn't really do any of those well. Maybe if we made it able to move through walls, like the Corruptor's Wraith Form, but I'm afraid that may make it too powerful.

I like the cloud of bats, but increase the damage. Seriously, 3% damage? Even at lvl 5 you'd only be doing 15% of a normal bite attack. MAYBE 10% per rank, and even then it'll end up as more of an escape action than an attack, unless you can get more than two targets. I'm assuming you're thinking LoS only, so no going through walls?

I'm sure we could do 'shapechanging', even if it doesn't actually change the character icon. What I'm not so sure about is a single talent that can do multiple things depending on where it's targeted. Without knowing the programming structure, I'm not sure how easy this would be. We may have to pick one of them. Personally, I'd vote for bats, but that's just me.

[Szragodesca]

I figured if you made Vampire's Gift the first one, people would whine that it basically gave you resists and penalties until you could learn Bite. That's why I figured it would do well as a separate 1-level granted talent like the Archmage teleport to their city. Can't unlearn it, need to put points into a talent further up the tree to improve its benefit (thereby making you rely less on it and more on your class in early levels).

I wasn't sure what to do with the mist. . . the bats were already kind of a retreat-fast movement idea, and I figured 50% resist all plus increased speed would be too good of an escape ability. If it also granted +10 Defense per level, that would make you pretty hard to hit physically once it was capped, making enemies rely on spells and effects to stop you from (slowly) working your way out of the level. If you weren't fast, but could move through walls, would that really be any more overpowering than being able to walk through them like a high level Archmage?


The bite of the bats wasn't meant to be an attack so much as a perk for having enemies between you and your exit point. 15% HP stolen on multiple mobs adds up, especially in some of the rooms I've died in. *shudder*

If you want the bats to be better, make them a form as well, give the aforementioned ability as a gifted talent while in that form, and give them one that has a 5% chance per rank of activating. that being, if you are killed while in bat form, you have X% chance to teleport X distance away and reform as a low-HP Vampire, adding something like 300 to the cooldown for the Mutable Form talent. (hey, it may have just saved your life, 300 is cheap. )


To tell you the truth, I think it would be great if the Vampire abilities also ran kind of like Equilibrium. You activate the Vampiric Gift sustain to gain a new resource called "Bloodlust" or "Thirst" or something, and as you bite, charm, shapechange, etc. that bar rises. As it rises you gain some boosts to your stats, some penalties to your light resist, but if it goes too high you start risking your character going rogue *snicker* until the new resource goes down enough to regain control. The problem with this is that you'd need to either make both a race and a class to have enough points to get enough abilities to make it worthwhile, or you'd have to monkey around with the levelup or events code to give vampires a few extra ways to gain their talents. I could flesh one out in all sorts of different abilities if I knew how to code.

[Sirrocco]

My first thought on the bats was that they might be a bit overpowered as they were. You're getting a perfect targeted phase door off of the first point? Plus a bit of damage and potentially significant heal? Okay, the fact that it has to be LOS limits it a bit, but still. (Oh, and having it be one of multiple forms is a bit much here).

Suggestion: cut out the transform to wolf and transform to mist powers. They're excessive, and bats-as-teleport is strong enough as-is. Leave the minimal drain damage (perhaps make a bit more minimal, depending). Make the max distance of the teleport be dependent on skill points spent - starting range of 3 or 4, range increases by one per point.

Other than that, is starting to look reasonable.