On the topic of gear… unique item quest!

[Delmuir]

I propose that IF you save the merchant in that early quest then later on in the game, in the east, you can stumble across another quest with said merchant. Should you save him twice (and I propose that it not be an escort mission) then he rewards you with a unique artifact that is otherwise unavailable as a random drop.

Each class has a small number of universal skills that are used on virtually every build. In some cases, there are a couple of different options. My idea is to create a series of build and class-specific unique artifacts that buff up a weakness in each build or class. It could cover an item that is under-served on that class (i.e. not a staff for a mage… more likely a hat or belt or something).

If you save him the second time (again, only available if you've saved him the first time) then he offers you a "shop." It's a list of all of the items available for your class and you're able to pick one of them.

The items that he offers are otherwise unavailable and should you fail the quest, you cannot acquire them through other means. Perhaps they should also note be available for transfer in the vault.

The items themselves would focus on items of lesser focus for said class (like gloves on a Cursed… no sense in creating redundancies) and offer build-specific bonuses. The idea is to give every class and most builds (predator cursed versus a fear cursed or cold mage versus a lightning mage) a unique item of significant power that is essentially guaranteed.

These items would not be "balanced" across classes. They wouldn't have much utility beyond the class that they're designed for. They'd probably offer little in the way of standard bonuses like stats and saves, instead offering bonuses to category AND offering specific skills that said class could really use… or something like that.

I don't think the items should be overpowered though… just hyper-specialized.

I like the hyper-specialized items but due to the finite number of enemies (and thus drops), farming for uniques is not viable in this game. Thus, a quest would be a good way to solve such a problem.

Every class and every build has that gap… that gap in their gear where the player wishes they had that "perfect" item. Well, this would be the chance to make that happen.

I suggest that it become available at lvl 40, in the West, and predicated on having saved the merchant the first time.

Thoughts?

[jaumito]

The more rewarding you make saving the merchant in the first place, the less appealing Tricks of the Trade becomes for rogue types, and I don't generally see "less choices" as a good thing.
Unless, of course, you give this prodigy a boost as well.

[Delmuir]

Good point.

I honestly dislike the rogue class so I can't speak to the it much.

More so, I'm not wedded to the details of my proposal so much as I'm attempting, as I always do, to throw the idea out there with the hope that others might be able to turn it into a viable idea.

[cctobias]

The more rewarding you make saving the merchant in the first place, the less appealing Tricks of the Trade becomes for rogue types, and I don't generally see "less choices" as a good thing.
Unless, of course, you give this prodigy a boost as well.

Well this is a really big problem. This mechanic is extremely limiting. We can't constantly be saying some cool idea can't be done because it will make a prodigy even worse, although its a valid point.

In the end the Assassin Lord needs to have a "Black Market" that is comparable, although possibly different for example favoring certain rogue centered egos such as extra stealth rating on items.

Otherwise every interesting suggestion for the merhcant will run into this. Also Tricks of the Trade is already pretty hugely disadvantaged. Just put a black market NPC in Last Hope behind the merchant shop, or in the merchant shop (ie. that is why they were muscling him in the first place).

Then you can adjust what kind of items it gives as you like to adjust for the relative advantage of getting Trick of the Trade and/or poisons. Which is really pretty negligible right now, but I would definitely suggest weighting items towards a certain character when this choice is made (poisons, stealth, crit modifiers etc).