Undead-only gear… concept. Perhaps racial gear?

[Delmuir]

I was contemplating the idea of having gear that is for undead only… something thematic. My thought is that this gear should not be able to be sold or found in shops or even converted to gold/energy. I could be disposed of the same way but wouldn't generate any benefit.

My concept is this:

Body parts!

Have magic-infused undead leave behind a body part from time to time that can be used essentially as a weapon. These wouldn't be random, probably… not sure.

Something like… if you kill an undead caster, perhaps its skull could be used as a helmet or a shin bone used as a mace and it grants some related benefit to the class of the enemy.

Obviously, it's just a thought… but it lends itself naturally to the idea of race-specific gear. I'm less a fan of that but who knows...

[twas Brillig]

It's interesting, a similar idea came up with regards to buffing Bone Giants as necromancer minions in this thread. Of course, the suggestion there assumed living enemies rather than the opposite. I can totally see this being done in a way that supports both systems.

Not to derail too badly, but to me it almost sounds like it would want to be an undead-only class. Balance might be a little iffy if it relied on a particular creature type (for isntance, only a few zones have any significant undead presence, and those that do are almost entirely undead) so a more general Assimilator class might be required for balance.

[Effigy]

I think adding undead-only item drops would be cumbersome, but making an undead-only class that uses body parts from slain enemies could be really cool.

[Delmuir]

As Twas noted, there was a thread that conceived of something similar in relation to Bone Giants. I found it unappealing for the Necromancer class.

Having said that, I like Effigy's idea… perhaps there could be a class of ghoulish necromancer-like creatures that don't use regular gear at all. Perhaps they only augment their abilities by using the body parts of their fallen enemies. More so, perhaps those body parts could degrade in power over time… eh, who knows?

I don't know if I have any good ideas really but maybe this'll inspire someone...

[Lyoncet]

This is making me think of a weird combination of Earthworm Jim and Arm Fall Off Boy. Because if you have removable body parts, why not also beat people up with them?

The mechanics would probably be horrid, but it's a nice thought. Even if "nice" is obviously not the right word. :p

[Planetus]

It was actually mentioned in the Necromancer thread that this Bone Golem idea was moving it more toward it's own race/class. So this is probably a logical extension of that. That being said, only getting gear from undead, for a class centered around that, does present some problems (as noted above). I'd say either undead have a chance to drop body part gear that ANYONE can use, but is categorically different from a normal helmet/axe/ring/whatever, or a unique undead-only class can use body parts from ANY enemy it kills, either as a random drop chance for that character only, or as a talent that it get's at some point.

Also, I've been itching to see an undead-only melee class, especially necromantic themed (i.e. uses souls as a resource for it's abilities), and this mechanic could fit in nicely. Maybe call it the Bone Collector or something? I'm imagining it'd have something similar to the Necromancer's Necrotic Aura, but it gives some effect instead of keeping minions from degrading (since I don't see this being a minion class). So, anything that dies in the aura grants you a soul, and maybe has a chance to drop a body item themed off that creature somehow? Then add some melee-mage abilities that use souls to power them. Or maybe each body part comes with an activatable ability (again themed from the creature it came from somehow), but each ability costs a soul to use. So the class wouldn't have any (or at least not many) inherent abilities that use souls, but this unique mechanic would make use of them, and a lot of the creature's actual battle power would rely on these abilities.

If so, that would mean most of the native talents would either boost that mechanic (more likely to drop, higher tier when dropped, more powerful activates, etc) or be utility abilities (life regen, armor, resists, rush/leap/teleport, etc) that use some resource other than souls (ok, healing can use souls, akin to Consume Soul). Whether that be mana or stamina or what, I don't know.