Class: Gardener [b42]

[grayswandir]

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/gardener

Here's another class! Inspired by some random chat on the irc a while ago. Again, not sure on how balanced it is. It shouldn't be completely broken, though.

Basically, it's halfway between an anorithil and a summoner. They use equilibrium and positive energy. This is explained away by them thinking that they are in league with nature, when they're really just using it for their own ends.

It still probably needs a locked level 10 tree like summoner does.

I'm also open to suggestions for better names. And all other suggestions, really.

Edit: If someone wants to help me with good tiles for graphical mode, that would be nice.

Existing Trees: Sun, Light, Call of the Wild, Survival.

New Trees:

Luminous Mold - Willpower

Luminous Mold: Summon a mold that can split itself to attack your enemies. The mold has XX dexterity and can use blinding spores at talent level XX.
At level 3, your molds can split one additional time.
At level 5, your molds also get 25%% chance to blind with their melee attacks.

Mold Resilience: Your luminous molds now have XX constitution and XX% light resistance. They also have their summon duration extended to X turns,
At level 3, your molds can split one additional time.
At level 5, your molds learn healing light at talent level 1.

Mold Prism:Kill all molds in a radius of XX, causing them to fire a beam of light at a target of your choice. The beam's damage will scale with the mold's magic and the mold's positive energy.
Your molds also get XX magic.
At level 3, your molds can split one additional time.
At level 5, your molds learn searing light at talent level 1.

Shambling Mold: Draw several molds together into a large, shambling creature. It's total life will be XX%% of the sum of the mold's that it was created from, and its basic stats will be that of a basic mold, increased by XX%% per mold used to create it. It will know any talents the molds knew, as well as chant of light at talent level XX, and XX talent levels in random talents from the grappling tree.
Every turn you will transmit energy to the mold as a beam of light, costing 1 positive energy per space. When it dies, it will cast new dawn at talent level XX centered on itself.
Your molds also get XX strength.
At level 3, your molds can split one additional time.
At level 5, your molds learn glyph of explosions at talent level 1.

Brilliant Forest - Willpower

Luminous Glade: Grow a glade of luminous trees in a radius of 3 around you. Each space will have a 60% chance to grow a tree, up to a maximum of XX trees. They will have XX magic and XX constitution. These trees will last for XX turns and know searing light at talent level XX.
Some of your searing light talent levels will be transfered to these trees, and is included in the above value.

Blinding Grove: Grow a grove of blinding trees in a radius of 3. Each space will have a 60% chance to grow a tree, up to XX trees. They will have XX magic, XX constitution, and XX% light resistance. These trees will last for XX turns and know sun flare at talent level XX.
Some of your sun flare talent levels will be transfered to these trees, and is included in the above value.

Burning Wood: Grow burning trees in a line up to XX long. They will have XX magic, XX constitution, and XX% fire resistance. These trees will last for XX turns and know firebeam at talent level XX.
Some of your firebeam talent levels will be transfered to these trees, and is included in the above value.

Gleaming Forest: Grow a forest of gleaming trees in a radius of XX around you. Each space will have a XX% chance to grow a tree, up to a maximum of XX trees. They will have XX magic and XX constitution. These trees will last for XX turns and know sunburst at talent level XX.
Some of your sunburst talent levels will be transfered to these trees, and is included in the above value.

Marching Wood - Willpower

Bush Guardian: Summon a bush guardian in an adjacent space. This creature of wood will have XX strength, XX dexterity, and XX constitution. It will last for 5 turns.
Bush guardians move with a speed of XX%%, and can only move into lit spaces.
At talent level 4, they learn the rush talent at level 1.

Entangling Vines: Target a bush guardian, causing entangling vines to erupt from it in a radius of 2, doing XX damage and pinning for 5 turns. For XX turns, the guardian's melee attacks will also gain XX nature damage and a 25% chance to pin for 3 turns. They will also learn constrict up to level XX.
Using this talent extends the guardian's summon time by 10 turns, up to a maximum of 30.

Poisonous Thorns: Target a bush guardian, causing poisonous thorns to erupt from it in a radius of 2, doing XX poison damage over 5 turns. For XX turns, the guardian's melee attacks will also gain XX poison damage. They will also learn poisonous bite up to level XX.
Using this talent extends the guardian's summon time by 10 turns, up to a maximum of 30.

Sleeping Pollen: Target a bush guardian, causing sleeping pollen to erupt from it in a radius of 2, putting targets to sleep for 5 turns. The duration of the sleep effect will be reduced every time they take XX damage. The guardian will continue to spread pollen in a radius of 1 for XX turns, putting targets to sleep for 3 turns. They will also learn stun up to level XX.
Using this talent extends the guardian's summon time by 10 turns, up to a maximum of 30.

Guidance - Magic

New Dawn: Share the light of dawn in a radius of XX. Splits XX% of your positive energy among all allies, and deals XX light damage to your enemies. You will be left with XX% of your original positive energy.

Stolen Light: Draw light towards yourself in a radius of XX, removing all positive energy from your allies, gaining XX% of that energy, and dealing XX darkness damage to your enemies.

Power of Unity: Unite your allies within a radius of XX. Each ally has their fire, light, and nature damage increased by XX% and resisted by XX% for every ally united. Physical, Mental, and Spell power is increased by XX for every ally united, and armour is increased by XX for every ally united. The duration of the effect increases with the number of allies.

Call to Action: Call your allies within a radius of XX to action, resetting the cooldown of up to XX of their talents. If there is an enemy on the space you target, then all allies affected will set their target to that enemy.

[Sradac]

looking cool so far but as mentioned in chat I hate the name -_-

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/prc

Theres a whole plethora of names I was getting inspiration from I put into chat. Obviously you wouldnt want to carbon copy a name, but theres lots of goodones here and they can be tweaked, like Deepwood Champion or Deepwood Guardian, etc.

[Sradac]

wait whats the point in giving my allies positive energy, if all their talents generate it???

[grayswandir]

That's what I think the level 10 tree should be for, probably.

Aside from that, mold laser deals extra damage the more positive energy they have.
The shambling mold starts using up its own positive energy if it can't get it from you (I should probably add that to the description).
If you use it at like 30% positive, and follow it up with stolen light, it can get you to 100% very quickly.
And I guess you can use it to power up the friendly sun paladins in those vampire vaults.

[stinkstink]

name the class 'weed wizard'

[necronomist]

I have to say, Gardeners are weird, but also very fun! Another great one grayswandir and this time right up my alley, since Summoners are probably my favourite class in TOME. I'm currently playing one, got her to lvl 11, but I though I'd give some feedback and offer some encouragement before I go to bed.

Marching Wood-Bush Guardian is a great summon, my most used so far. Giving him Rush is very helpful at lvl 4, greatly increasing its mobility. My only suggestion for improvement is to make it so that the player can choose where to summon it and possibly increase the range a bit (something like 1/1/2/2/3). From my experience with Summoners, being able to control the battlefield is critical to winning an encounter-more control would also mean that the skill is more useful when the player is standing near corners, with enemies closing in from multiple angles. Might also consider renaming the skill to Shambler (iconic DnD monster).

Brilliant Forest-Here, I think the randomness of the summoning positions is great-you never know what you will get and have to adjust your tactics. One suggestion: make it so you can switch places with your summoned trees since currently you can easily get trapped in tight spaces. I'm also not sure about the usefulness of Blinding Grove-the random placing means that the player is in danger of getting hit with Sun flare and blinded multiple times. This might also be a concern with Gleaming Forest. Hopefully, I'll be able to provide more feedback on this after I play some more with the class.

Luminous Mold and Guidance-can't really say much at this time since I haven't used these skills as much. I can see however that heavy investment in the Luminous Mold tree can produce some great effects.

Two other issues you might want to consider:

Currently the class has no EQ recovery mechanism outside of Meditation (unless I'm missing something). This might cause issues in the mid and late game, since the class does not appear to be too offence-oriented and encounters tend to drag on. You might consider introducing a skill that can replenish EQ in combat or modify an existing skill for that purpose. For example, Mold prism could also refund EQ for every mold sacrificed.

The class also has no escape or mobility skills-even a single escape skill can provide huge survivability to a character. Both my recent winners, a Summoner and a Mindslayer spend category points to unlock such options (Phase Summon and the Augmented Mobility tree) and I felt it was a worthwhile investment that saved my hide a number of times.

Hopefully I'll be able to play some more tomorrow and provide some more feedback.

[Sradac]

level 15 now

I must say im really liking this class. Reminds me of when the illusionist first came out in the fact that its a very unique feeling to play one.

Another criticism / comment though: Lack of resistance penetration.

Probably about 90% of your damage on this class is light damage, with the occasional bit of fire, physical, and nature here and there. But most of your summons and spells are light. This makes dealing with light resistant or light immune enemies a huge pain.

Even worse are light/fire immune (Ahem...luminous horrors?) Im dreading going into lake nur.

At least the anorithil has Darkness damage to deal with the resistant and immune enemies. This class gets a massive what, 1 darkness damage spell and its on a high cooldown? hrmmmmmm

[necronomist]

OK, I'm just about to hit lvl 20 (about to head to Tempest Peak) and I though I'd provide some more feedback.

One of the reasons I like this class is that it has a very solid foundation of existing skill trees – Celestial Light provides great defensive/recovery options, Chants for straight defence, while Sun gives solid (but not spectacular) ranged and AOE clearing power and Mindstar Mastery provides solid melee capabilities. The new summoning trees are very fun and complement the class well, at least in the early game; more testing would be needed to see how they stand up to mid and late game.

Guidance however is a bit of lame duck currently-the first two skills offer very little; New Dawn has few synergies while Stolen Light mainly refills your positive energy, which is plentiful to begin with (since the class has no skills that constantly drain positive like the Anorithil Corona or Paladin’s Shield of Light). The third skill is interesting, but likely underpowered-you would need great positioning and a lot of summons to get a significant benefit-for comparison, take a look at Totality (Anorithil skill) that gives large resistance penetration and cooldown reduction, without any hassle. The last skill, Call to action, also looks interesting, but again requires great positioning for your summons, to ensure that you get at least a few in the radius; this might be difficult especially since most of the summons in Brilliant Forest are positioned semi-randomly.

Some suggestions:
Have Gardeners start with unlocked Celestial Chants and pump mastery to 1.3 – this gives more defensive options early on. Also, pump the mastery of Light and Mindstars to the usual 1.3 value (but keep Mindstar Mastery locked)-if it is too much, you can always bring it back down later. This will make the power of these trees comparable to other classes that start with them, making balancing comparisons easier.

Give Gardeners access to Staff Combat, locked at 1.3 mastery. This will provide more build options and fits well with the class, since they benefit both from spellpower and mindpower. The player can choose to go with staves and keep their distance, or go with mindstars and rush into melee. That would of course make Gardeners a three-resource class (positive, EQ and mana), which you may want to avoid.

Remove Guidance and replace it with a new class tree; it would include Power of Unity and Call into action, possibly buffed in some manner, plus two more skills. Power of Unity could be buffed by increasing the power of the effect, but more importantly the radius, so that it is a bit more helpful at early levels. Alternatively, you could make it provide light and fire penetration, so that the class has some way to deal with Luminous Horrors (Sradac above makes a very good point). Some suggestions for the remaining skills:

an escape option (eg Seeds of Recal, where you throw a seed in range X and afterwards you can teleport to this spot as long as the seed is still there; give the seeds a medium to long duration, eg start at 15 turns, go up to 30. At max level, throwing the seed could become instant)
an EQ recovery talent,
a talent that increases the power or utility of all your summons (something like Resilience or Grand Arrival/Detonate), or
a talent that directly increases the power of the player (eg a sustain that would give you spellpower if wielding mindstars and changes mindstars so that they also use XX% of Magic for damage or it would give you mindpower if wielding a staff and increase your physical and spellcritical chance).

I also noticed that both Molds and Guardians are immovable when summoned in unlit spaces; for Molds this is not an issue, but it also prevents the player from switching places with them. This, coupled with the current lack of escape talents, may lead to some hairy situations. Also, this behaviour increases the burden of knowledge for the player, since with the current interface, one cannot easily tell if a particular tile is lit or not without mousing over.

I'll stick with the class and try to provide some more feedback on how it handles Lake Nur and the Cultists before I head to Dreadfell.

[kazak]

Hedge Wizard?

[Sradac]

To address some of necronomists concerns, me and grays were tossing around ideas on this class the other day.

Guidance - I like grays idea on this for the 3rd talent, and it addresses my concern about pen. Changing the resist / + damage to give + %penetration. That way its much more valuable in the mid-late game so your summons can pierce enemies Light and Fire resistances.

Mobility issue - I suggested a talent named something along the lines of "nature walk" or whatever that will allow you to teleport to the location of any TREE summon. The fact that trees are immovable and impassable is good so you can have a wall, and you could still move around between them. And it would help with the silly situation I got myself in, surrounded myself with trees in lake nur and almost drowned because I couldnt get past them

I think giving some kind of staff skills would be good, but maybe not the alchs tree. I personally used a staff instead of mindstars on my gardner because I found a nice one with +18% light damage around level 10, really helped my molds and trees damage potential. Though mindstars are still of value since like summoner summons, these flora scale with mindpower.

1.3 mastery on chants and light I agree with, though I didnt really see a need for having chants unlocked at the beginning. I did quite well as a higher with both locked, and my cornac I took mindstar mastery to dish out melee.

and I like the name Hedge Wizard, but that term typically refers to a magic user that just dabbles in some basic end magics and never becomes anything powerful.


LUA ERROR NOTE:

I encountered a rare Gardner, and any time it tried to summon trees I got lua errors. FYI grays.

[Sradac]

another bug ive found, this one with Shambling Mold.

When that sustain ends, either from you running out of positive energy, you cancel it, or you unlearn the talent, the effect ending does not refund the sustained equi cost.

Right now with no sustains up, my equi is stuck at 84 and wont go any lower because of how many times I have used shambling molds in the past.

[kazak]

and I like the name Hedge Wizard, but that term typically refers to a magic user that just dabbles in some basic end magics and never becomes anything powerful.

Heh. Yeah, that was kinda the joke. At some point a while back there were requests for a hedge mage class and, well.....

[grayswandir]

Posted a version 2. This just fixes the shambling mold problem and reworks power of unity - the 2 things that most needed to be done.

I'll definitely be working in more of your suggestions when I have more time.

Also, if any of you get the issue with the gardener rares, could you post the lua errors here? It's surprisingly difficult to force a gardener rare to spawn on demand for testing.

[MisiuPysiu]

Hey,

Just started to play with this class. It looks very nice indeed. I hope it gets developed. The ideas behind the molds and trees are good. It would be a pity if the addon got forgotten.

Cheers

[JerryShaw]

This is my favorite addon here so far. I had to register to say thank you for making this mod. Is there any current plans to update this mod for the [b43]? I'm going to see if I can play the latest version with this mod and see if I have any problems.