Exaggerate Cursed… make it more like the movie "Crank."

[Delmuir]

Another thought… have some of his skills, maybe when capped at lvl 5 or something, cost percent of life and then hate to use.

I'm thinking that an optimal strategy would be to ignore solo enemies… let them follow you around, hitting you while you try and maintain. Enemies would be like batteries. Once enough massed, you'd go crazy-town on them.

I'm thinking that the "life cap" buff would be awesome for that. You might be in a situation where you only have a hundred hit-points but your cap could be buffed to ten times that amount. Then you'd have a natural life-drain on your melee attacks such that you could max out your life, which, if you managed that with maxed hate, would put you in "god mode" for one turn. You could then spend some absurd percent of life (like 80%) to use a super-buffed ability that would do obscene amounts of damage.

I was also thinking that this enemy wouldn't be overpowered when you encountered one in the game because you'd always be alone. The exception would be summoners… they'd have a real hard time with this type of character, especially if they didn't kill it right away.

Then, there's the problem of wandering around on the map… my thought is that if you teleported out using wand of recall, you'd suffer a huge penalty. If you walked out, you'd already be weakened. Then, there'd be no penalty on the map. No life drain, nothing. Or, you could give no penalty for wand of recall and just make the life drain normal… I'm sure it'd be survivable.

[The Revanchist]

I don't think you should degrade on the Wilderness map. That's just obtuse.

I would much prefer a penalty for having to run.

[Sirrocco]

This starts to sound different enough that it would do better as a third Afflicted class. Possibly "Lost". After all, this guy just doesn't seem like he'd be all that into Gloom. Then you could have the various defining advantages and disadvantages be as a result of taking various skills - so the character would start out a bit slower and grow more intense over time. Deciding which trees to open would be a major part of the strategy. For example, "automatically summons hostile shadows while at low hate" would be a skill, by itself - and by the time you get to it, having the built-in hate control might well be worth it, especially if you'd taken a number of other skills that did bad things to you at low hate.

[Parcae2]

Perhaps they can be given a skill that teleports them to the nearest enemy anywhere on the map? Also, any downsides should stop when the level is empty, to given them time to get to the stairs.

Edit: Or a skill that teleports them to the nearest enemy automatically, under certain conditions (e.g. no enemies in sight).

[Delmuir]

Perhaps they can be given a skill that teleports them to the nearest enemy anywhere on the map? Also, any downsides should stop when the level is empty, to given them time to get to the stairs.

Edit: Or a skill that teleports them to the nearest enemy automatically, under certain conditions (e.g. no enemies in sight).

I think this kind of defeats the point…

I would imagine that the drain shouldn't be so intense that you couldn't exit a level…

The idea is that you'd be constantly wavering between very weak and ridiculously overpowered. In theory, when this character is maxed out, it's obscenely overpowered. The problem is keeping it the character from getting too weak and bottoming out. The way I see it, you'd rush through a level and by the time the level is over, you're probably a bit overpowered… by the time you leave the level, you're normal again. Waste too much time and… then it's a balancing act of luring solo monsters, while running through the level hoping to pick up other solo monsters at a pace that you can survive… it'd be dangerous… if you wasted time.

[Delmuir]

This starts to sound different enough that it would do better as a third Afflicted class. Possibly "Lost". After all, this guy just doesn't seem like he'd be all that into Gloom. Then you could have the various defining advantages and disadvantages be as a result of taking various skills - so the character would start out a bit slower and grow more intense over time. Deciding which trees to open would be a major part of the strategy. For example, "automatically summons hostile shadows while at low hate" would be a skill, by itself - and by the time you get to it, having the built-in hate control might well be worth it, especially if you'd taken a number of other skills that did bad things to you at low hate.

Perhaps it would be better as a new class. I'm not entirely sure if the idea of having a skill that could self-generate hate doesn't defeat the entire purpose. That would make the gameplay similar to other classes.

"Should I kill these two enemies now, or should I let them keep hitting me while I race to the bigger battle?" That's the kind of question that should drive this character. If you vacillated, it could spell doom.

My goal is to create tension in the gameplay itself… there is no way to self-generate resources. It's a constant high-wire act… rushing to the next battle all the while hoping that you haven't weakened too much…

That's why I think this character, when maxed out, should be ridiculously overpowered. The first part of any fight/dungeon is just trying not to die… but by the end, you're absolutely destroying tough bosses like they're nothing. I rather enjoy the idea of struggling against a minor enemy and having to choose… do I spend the time to try and kill this thing or do I let it follow me into more enemies? That's the tension that would be exciting and nerve-wracking. It's a completely different set of decisions that you have to consider…

I like the idea of skills compounding the penalty but I do think it's best if it's fairly simple… just make it get worse over time. More life drain. More hate drain. More reductions in accuracy, etc. If it gets too complex then the player can't "rush." They have to evaluate and analyze and that would actually slow this character's gameplay to a crawl… you'd have to evaluate and calculate every single step. That'd be dull.

I think it's better if it's "unclear" if you'll survive the next encounter. That means you might stroll through huge swaths of the game but some bad luck or an inexplicable mistake could kill you even in an easier area. This would be a gamblers character. You'd have to play the percentages, dealing with incomplete data because you wouldn't know what's around the corner. You'd have to guess and hope for the best.