De-Beholdering the Beholder ™ for Inclusion in Vanilla ToME

[ajfluffy]

Heyas Rex, things at the new job have finally slowed down to the point where I can devote time to this. Do you need my assistance coding? I'm going to take a look at the project as it stands now early this week.

There are many things I had wanted to do with the original add-on that were never truly implemented

[rexorcorum]

Gathering the latest feedback and suggestions into a single reply.

I personally like "Outworlder" for alien races.

Marson, Outworlder sounds cool and there is plenty of space in-there for fearos, fearscapers and other planned friendly tourists (Extraeyalnials! )

Looks fairly interesting. The starting quest is a bit odd so maybe have it be an additional tutorial type module that unlocks the race on completion (if that's even possible)?

Hurph, quite right you are - it is indeed odd in comparison with everything else in the game in terms of quests When you think of it, it sounds a bit like the waking of the Nameless One in the Mortuary - lots of explaining and things to do to get things started. But then again, there are always first times for everything .

Also maybe have a secret paradox using caste that actually works off of the extraplanar explanations.

Damn, I knew I'm missing something important. Originally I wrote "four castes" and then I realized that I can't remember what the fourth should be...

Also possibly have the warrior caste not have the inherent levitation of the others while gaining durability to make up for it (possibly give them some fatigue negation to represent that they're still lighter than they should be). Also what should the other Watchers do to gain growth? Perhaps have the psychics use the same general method as the mageyes replacing arcane with psionic while the warriors eat ingredients from rare monsters in exchange for set numbers of points depending on the ingredient. Warriors maybe in exchange for less ring slots have a couple of additional tentacle weapon slots that act sort of like telekinetic weapons (would it be possible to have it limited to daggers at start progressing to 2 handed weapons on max growth?).

All interesting and valid ideas. As you probably have already figured, my proposal is more a concept than an actual design (cause I don't know ---- about math, mechanics and formulae ), so everything related to these is open for brainstorming and discussion.

The one major question I have is if extraplanar origin will be altered so that it is possible to become a zigur follower as a psychic or warrior Watcher while still maintaining it. Also might be interesting to have the image projector get a skill based around other uses of it. Low level could be a light like spell while the capstone might grant something along the lines of a skill that makes you invisible and spawns some allies with 1 hp no attack and taunt or similar. Effectively costly emergency escape button that throws up some chaff to distract enemies. The other thing to note is that channel mastery doesn't translate well to the warrior if he doesn't get eyebeams or something similar so it might be necessary to make a replacement skill.

Same as above

I apologize for the wall of text. Was mostly just putting all my ideas up to see what sticks.

Nah, your wall of texts pales before the wall-ness of the OP And very nice considerations and ideas, thank you, joebobjoe.

Ajfluffy, yay !

[Nagyhal]

Also what should the other Watchers do to gain growth? Perhaps have the psychics use the same general method as the mageyes replacing arcane with psionic

This was indeed a long-standing idea. You can actually find mentions of this hidden away in some of the code.

The one major question I have is if extraplanar origin will be altered so that it is possible to become a zigur follower as a psychic or warrior Watcher while still maintaining it.

It seems you've thought about these things almost as deeply as I have! Separate magic trees and psionic trees were definitely going to be split out of the ones we already had. Channel Mastery was going to be shunted over to another tree and replaced with some kind of grapple - I was actually going to do some crazy things with Tribeam for that - Central Eye made fully psionic, benefits for psionic beholders added to the tier-1 Beholder racial, and much, much more.

I suppose from now on, though, it's going to depend very much on ajfluffy's designs and intentions.

Welcome back, ajfluffy!

[HousePet]

Corrupted Horrors are mutated creatures, these Watchers are not.

So, uh, you seem to dislike the term you came up with.

Err. Corrupted Horrors are an existing subrace of Horrors... They are the closest creatures on Eyal to Aberrations. That was an example to show how different this new race is from Aberrations.

[Doctornull]

Err. Corrupted Horrors are an existing subrace of Horrors... They are the closest creatures on Eyal to Aberrations. That was an example to show how different this new race is from Aberrations.

Please don't try that kind of strawman argument. You're not going to find success with that, but you may lower the quality of the discussion.

"Corrupted Horror" points to one specific origin.
"Space Alien" points to one specific origin.
That's part of why both terms are bad.

"Aberration" does not have that kind of baggage, which is part of why it's good.

[HousePet]

Corrupted Horror points to any creature that has been warped and corrupted. The source of the corruption or the original creature are not specific.

I never said Space Alien. Alien simply means from elsewhere, nothing specific about that.

Aberration as you said is a deviation from what is normal. Other than these creatures being away from home, the is nothing to suggest they are a deviation from normality. (sure the locals might disagree)

[The Revanchist]

I'm still in favour of Outworlder. Broad enough to encompass... Quite a bit, really. Although maybe too broad.

[Marson]

To me it connotates outside this world, but not dimensionally (still in this universe), and could be a catch-all in that realm. But such things are pretty personal (as seen with aberration).

Outsider makes me think extra-dimensional/planar, but that's thanks to D&D. I think a ToME-specific term instead would be good for anything that isn't specifically allocated the way demons are. But that doesn't have bearing on this thread.

[Doctornull]

Corrupted Horror points to any creature that has been warped and corrupted. The source of the corruption or the original creature are not specific.

Corrupted Horrors are specifically the things found in the dungeon above and around The Mouth, for which a specific original creature is known and for which a specific source of corruption is known.

Maybe in your addons you use the terms differently? I dunno. In the core game they're pretty nailed down to be something very different from what you seem to think.

Outsider makes me think extra-dimensional/planar, but that's thanks to D&D. I think a ToME-specific term instead would be good for anything that isn't specifically allocated the way demons are. But that doesn't have bearing on this thread.

Yeah the one nice thing about D&D baggage is that it can be leveraged to aid in recognition.

E.g.: everyone expects Golems to be in the Construct race group, and since they are, this is a helpful bit of baggage.

I agree about "Outsider" being either too vague (for the non-D&D crowd) or incorrectly specific (for the D&D crowd).

"Alien" also has issues since in ToME there are space aliens from another planet which are currently invading, and those aliens are called Demons. So both categories already mean something, and what they mean is not the usual thing.

(Honestly the idea of demons being invading space aliens is hella cool and I really dig that bit of ToME lore, so I'd kind of dislike polluting space with "friendly" non-demonic aliens...)

[HousePet]

Alt Maze is also populated by Corrupted Horrors, including the Horned Horror.
There may have been Dwarfs on that side of the continent before the Spellblaze but the Horned Horror is definitely not a dwarf. So it appears that multiple original creatures are possible and there could be more than one source of the corruption.

But anyway, do we have a planet name for these creatures? That could be used as a superrace rather than specifying Alien, as Alien would be infinitely larger than the Eyal superrace category would be?

Another option would be Visitor. That doesn't have the dual meanings of Alien.

[Doctornull]

I like Visitor.

Planet name would be cool, too. (Would the natives be Eyaliens?)

Another option: MUTANT

[kyuubee]

tentacled monstrosity

[Sradac]

I personally approve of moving away from the D&D type lore and design!

Call em Void Watchers. Watching from the Void. Cause they're either from, or went through the void. To watch.

[rexorcorum]

Call em Void Watchers. Watching from the Void. Cause they're either from, or went through the void. To watch.

Hmm, quite nice, thanks, Sradac. Now I have an excuse to further exercise my perfectly broken Sindarin: Gast-Ithirni . Looks and sounds intimidating and that is good.

[PureQuestion]

I like Outworlder.