"Awakening" or subclass quests [spoilers]

[Radon26]

"An extra dungeon perhaps with a class specific artifact and/or a bonus cosmetic effect might be less likely to cause power creep. "

If its a wielded item, it means you would have to give up another item, which may even be better then the new.
There is however a class which already has a quest like that without the above problem. The cursed and his iron acorn.
An item (talisman?) that gives you passive bonuses while held in the inventory, and not equiped, could be a good idea.
+x to some masteries,
X when Y is cast
set fatigue to -50% when on negative hp

although, for an archmage, it could be a ring, for an alchemist i propose a lite (i would really like to see a "lite mastery"), a sunpal could find a unique shield that does well with the guardian tree, for a solipsist it would definitely be a hat, or an amulet.

[HousePet]

To be honest, I don't think a major shakeup of the game balance is a bad thing. (though possibly not what you want to discuss here)
Character progression does seem to stop at the end of Dreadfell. Its a distinct game of two halves. The first half of the game is where you build your character, do escort quests, have some choices on where and what you do, has random server pushed zones. The second half is fairly linear loot grind to the end. You can easily have a prodigy before getting to the second half of the game.

As for quests: A quest for shield users could be defending civilians in a Sunwall Outpost. A bit like the Lumberjack Village but better.

[Strongpoint]

What about random rewards? Or even gamble, like wyrm bile but with real risk of getting negative result.

[Atarlost]

If the goal is to spice things up what about giving a random tree with some points that can only be used for the new tree? Sort of a nonstandard build lottery. Sometimes you'll get tech/archery-bows on an archmage and get an entertaining sidegrade. Sometimes you'll get spell/water on a wyrmic with no spellpower and it'll basically go to waste and sometimes you'll get spell/earth on a shadowblade and be broken.

It might be possible to come up with a set of trees (or a set per superclass or something) that can't create any absurdly broken combos but can produce options that are worth exploring.

The quest would have to come early enough for you to reconsider your build but late enough that you couldn't practically scum it from the start.

[twas Brillig]

It might be possible to come up with a set of trees (or a set per superclass or something) that can't create any absurdly broken combos but can produce options that are worth exploring.

This seems like the most likely way to offer multiple trees. It might be an interesting place to offer unique trees that can't be acquired any other way. One issue would be points--many builds wouldn't be able to take advantage of interesting, or especially randomly-selected, trees. What if part of the reward were a limited respec? That could give people more freedom to experiment in the early game, and more flexibility to select from bonus trees or escorts, but not overly inflate the power curve of the endgame.

[Micbran]

He did say that once you gained the tree, you would get class points that could only be used on said tree.

[Radon26]

"once you gained the tree, you would get class points that could only be used on said tree."
soooo...
class points, generic points, and now "unique" points?
3rd column? what would an adventurer get?

[Micbran]

Adventurer would get a random tree that:
If they're antimagic, they wouldn't get a magic tree.
Wouldn't be a weapon specific tree, I.E. Two-handed techniques.
Takes they're 3 highest stats and looks at all trees of those stats. Then picks one and grants it to them.


As for unique points, why not just put the player into a special level up screen that only shows one tree with... 9 points to spend. Unspent points disappear.

[HousePet]

I think the idea of this is more of a flavourful character customisation. A random category doesn't give much flavour and will most of the time be useless.

[Micbran]

Whatever it is, I feel like the player should have some sort of choice in the reward. Whether it be by choosing it directly or by picking door number 2 or by making a set of "correct" choices, I think it'll make for a more interesting detour from the main quest.

[Atarlost]

I think the idea of this is more of a flavourful character customisation. A random category doesn't give much flavour and will most of the time be useless.

A random category provides uncertainty. Most characters are planned and if they don't like the random category they're no worse off than before, but serendipity can happen. The category will sometimes be useless, yes, but it will only be useless most of the time if the possibility lists are badly selected.

I'm not sure what makes it not flavorful. The game could select an unlock quest after determining what category you will have the option of getting and it wouldn't be any less flavorful than the antimagic or corruption/hexes unlocks. Working around antimagic might be tricky and require magic and antimagic options to be paired on a quest that can go either way the way escort rewards are, but it should be doable.

[HousePet]

It is doable, but why make it random?

[Atarlost]

It is doable, but why make it random?

So that the player is presented with a choice they can not have planned for in advance.

[HousePet]

At late game, when they have little scope for adapting to it?

[Radon26]

At late game, when they have little scope for adapting to it?

how about a reward for delivering the staff (or information of it) to the new hope?