Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

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Mister_Vimes
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Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#1 Post by Mister_Vimes »

Hey everyone, I've just uploaded my first ToME addon: Now You See Me...

This is the description from the addons page:
Adds the Illusionist and Arcane Trickster subclasses to Tales of Maj'Eyal. Both of these classes rely on subterfuge and deception to survive.

The Illusionist is a master of light and shadow who confuses foes to keep them at bay.

The Arcane Trickster is a rogue who specializes in disabling foes from a distance before closing in for the kill.

Both classes are a ton of fun to play!
I would love some feedback from the board!

I'll post more info about the classes below...

Mister_Vimes
Wayist
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:50 am

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#2 Post by Mister_Vimes »

Illusionist

The Illusionist is a master of light and shadow.

Spell/Arcane
Spell/Temporal
Spell/Meta (locked)
Spell/Phantasm
Spell/Divination
Spell/Conveyance
Spell/Staff Combat
Cunning/Survival (locked)

Spell/Obscura
  • Shadow Cast: Short range darkness damage
  • Shadow Draw: Restore a fraction of health when dealing darkness damage
  • Shadow Bind: Seize control of your enemies' shadows
  • Shadow Form: Merge with your own shadow, causing it to deal darkness damage when you deal light or arcane damage
Spell/Illusion
  • Create Image: Create a harmless but distracting illusion- the higher the talent level, the better the illusion
  • Sparkling Cloud: Create a cloud of light to blind and illuminate foes
  • Glamour: Benign Aura: Convince foes that you are harmless just long enough for you to sneak away...
  • Veil of Illusion: Surround yourself with shifting shadows, increasing your evasion substantially
Spell/Polarity (locked)
  • Photon Pull: Deal darkness damage to one foe, creating a damaging cloud of light around them
  • Inversion Mirror: React to light or darkness damage by increasing your resistance and damage
  • Brilliant Vortex: Deal light damage in one spot, which will erupt into a burst of darkness
  • Polarization: Decrease your foes' light and darkness resistance
Spell/Chaotic Illusion (locked)
  • Illude: Confuse your foes into attacking themselves or their friends
  • Illusory Insanity: Your images deal mind damage to your foes
  • Glamour: Frightful Aura: Your very presence stuns nearby foes
  • Image Self: Create an autonomous image of yourself, which will in turn spawn its own images
Spell/Supreme Illusion (locked)
  • Channel Image: Channel your sight through a mobile image for scouting or distracting
  • Image Wall: Create a barrier that you can see through but others cannot. They might even find themselves unable to pass through it
  • Glamour: Mimicry: Disguise yourself as one of your foes, fooling others into attacking them instead of you
  • Master Illusionist: Learn to infuse your images with arcane power, allowing them to deal damage and increase their effects

Mister_Vimes
Wayist
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:50 am

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#3 Post by Mister_Vimes »

Arcane Trickster

The Arcane Trickster is a rogue with a magical bent.

Cunning/Lethality
Cunning/Stealth
Cunning/Trapping
Cunning/Dirty Fighting (locked)
Cunning/Survival
Technique/Combat Training
Technique/Mobility
Spell/Divination
Cunning/Scoundrel (locked)

Spell/Illusion (see Illusionist for descriptions)

Cunning/Arcane Tricks
  • Phase Trick: Reach through the dimensions to disable one foe
  • Magic Rope: Throw a magically animated rope to silence and damage one enemy
  • Phase Knife: Stab an opponent at range, damaging and slowing them
  • Mystdirection: divert non-physical damage away from yourself and onto a nearby enemy
Spell/Street Magic
  • Cheap Shot: Blind an enemy and deal arcane damage
  • Phase Rush: Warp to another space, dazing nearby creatures
  • Lurk: Meld into the shadows to increase your recovery and defense
  • Passwall: Jump through a solid wall to escape or surprise your enemies
Cunning/Arcane Gadgetry (locked)
  • Sparker: Throw an arcane incendiary to damage and silence foes within range
  • Mana Syphon: Drain arcane resources from nearby targets
  • Phase Chains: Lock a target into place with a persistent pin
  • Pain Channel: Store energy over time to increase your damage
Spell/Street Golems (locked)
This category consists of various specialty summons. It's a bit unique in that you don't have to learn lower tier talents before the upper tier, and also in that each talent has a pool of random upgrades you learn with each point you invest.
  • Ugly Bomb: A self-destructive mannequin
  • Dust Rat: A durable harrying unit
  • Cog Spider: Drains resources and pins enemies
  • Aether Hawk: Deals great damage and can learn to protect you
Cunning/Void Combat (locked)
  • Void Blades: Deal arcane or darkness damage with your melee attacks, draining either mana or stamina
  • Abduction: grab an adjacent unit and teleport away randomly
  • Void Counter: Blink away when attacked, lowering the damage you take and lashing out at whoever attacked you
  • Void Stalk: Seek out your foes through the void, teleporting to them for a surprise attack

HousePet
Perspiring Physicist
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Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#4 Post by HousePet »

These sounds interesting.
My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.

Erenion
Archmage
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Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#5 Post by Erenion »

In case you ever wanted to feel invincible and utterly useless at the same time, try a Drem Illusionist that puts 90% of their class points into the three Illusion trees.
You can just spam the area with 14 images, never be targeted, bury any enemies under an avalanche of phantasms and then cry because nothing you do deals any damage and if a boss has Vitality you probably have no hope of killing them.

Illusionist is insanely fun, however, one thing that annoys me is that images summoned by my images are both better and worse at the same time - they have a higher duration because Image Self clones get higher levels in Create Image (on high difficulties), but they deal no retaliation damage, since the Image Self clone does not have Master Illusionist. If the Image Self image dies, they also lose the ability to deal mind damage from Illusory Insanity.
That would be the first thing I'd change about the illusion trees.
The second thing is making Create Image able to target past other creatures. There were many times where my own Create Image or Image Self images blocked my frenzied-out Create Image.
Breaking Projection since 1.5

Mister_Vimes
Wayist
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:50 am

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#6 Post by Mister_Vimes »

Awesome feedback, Erenion! Thanks for checking out the addon and taking the time to leave comments.

Second thing first- yes, that is a good call: Create Image should be able to be cast through other targets, or at a minimum through other friendly targets. I'll put that on my list.

As to the other, TBH I considered allowing Image Self images to inherit Master Illusionist so their images would also have offensive power, but I thought it would be overpowered. But I'll definitely play with it some more, knowing that aspect of the class frustrated you.

Thanks again, and feel free to leave any further comments!

Arcvasti
Wyrmic
Posts: 269
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Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#7 Post by Arcvasti »

Illusionist seems interesting, albeit pretty unfocussed. That said, they really shouldn't have Spell/Arcane since that has Disruption Shield. That monstrosity shouldn't exist even on Archmage and definitely shouldn't be allowed to ruin othe classes.

EDIT: Also, their illusions really shouldn't check Cunning directly. Just have them check mental save like literally every other mind affecting effect.

Mister_Vimes
Wayist
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:50 am

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#8 Post by Mister_Vimes »

Thanks for the feedback, Arcvasti! I have to say I'm kind of a fan of Arcane on the Illusionist class- it works pretty well and I feel like it's more balanced without the Aether category. But to each their own, I guess.

EDIT: That's a good thought. I went with straight Cunning to avoid high-WIL low-CUN creatures getting a boost to check, but I'd be interested in hearing why it should be mental save instead.

Arcvasti
Wyrmic
Posts: 269
Joined: Sat Apr 29, 2017 9:39 pm

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#9 Post by Arcvasti »

Hmm, maybe I should spell out just how awful Disruption Shield is. Disruption Shield is among the most ludicrously broken talents in the game. It gives you an incredibly amount of EHP and resource restoration. However, the shield only works if you have very low mana. Therefore, to use Disruption Shield properly, you have to spam spells at nothing after every fight in order to lower your mana enough to have it be useful. The other problem you run into is that you want to get rid of mana as fast as possible, so having high fatigue is actually beneficial instead of the drawback it should be. Disruption Shield simultaneously trivializes defense, resource management and choosing between light/heavy armour while being incredibly tedious to use.

The simplest method to fix this would be to make a custom tree which is basically just Spell/Arcane except with Disruption Shield being replaced with Mana Shield. Mana Shield just converts x% of all damage you take into mana damage. Optionally, have this mana damage be modified by fatigue to encourage light armour. Of course, all this assumes that Illusionist needs more durability, which I'm not sure about.

Meta could maybe also stand to be axed since it's really strong and only dubiously thematic. Plus the class has three locked class categories already. Not as big a deal as other stuff though.

A lot of your talents use linear talent level scaling, which is incredibly bad practice. Move them over to the proper scaling functions so they use diminishing returns like every other talent.

As for images checking mental save, there are a few good reasons for that. First, the flavour justification for high-WIL and low-CUN creatures not being able to see through illusions is dubious at best. A cunning creature might spot discrepencies in the illusion, but a high willpower creature might be able to disbelieve the illusion straight-up instead. The second reason is for consistency: All other effects like this use a power/stat against a save. Saves and powers are subject to rescaling, which leads to less absolute results. If the flavour makes for inconsistent mechanics, then rework the flavour.

Shadow Cast's description is kind of ambiguous in that I didn't realize it was a beam until I fired it.

Shadow Bind having a special case for a single type of enemy is bad. The flavour is solid, but that is no excuse for bad mechanics. The ability is probably complicated enough without converting enemies anyways.

I really don't like how Create Image works. It has a random chance to spawn a different type of creature based on talent level. The differences between these creatures are not given in the talent description and it's easy to see why, since there are so many of them that they wouldn't fit on a reasonably sized talent description. That should have been a clue that you were making it too complicated. If there must be different types of images, then I'd suggest cutting them down to only three. Wolf, Knight and Nightmare seem like the most distinct ones to me, but I haven't tested how they actually play yet, so a different trio might work better. Oh, and it works with Blighted Summoning when it really shouldn't. Please don't acknowledge Blighted Summoning's existence and maybe it'll just go away.

What does the illumination status do and what does it's power mean? Sparkling Cloud needs to explain these things.

Photon Pull's cooldown seems pretty large for the effect it has. Haven't tested it though, so it might actually be fine.

Inversion Mirror is pretty weird to me. There doesn't seem to be any way to guarantee that you'll be hit by light/dark damage, so there's no reason at all to invest in it.

Why does Brilliant Vortex deal physical damage? The class is nominally split between three damage types, which is already more then usual. Pick one of them for it to deal instead. My vote is arcane.

Illusory Insanity is in the same boat: Mind damage might be thematic, but it should really be arcane/light/dark damage like the rest of the class.

Frightful Aura should be more specific about what it does. How long does it stun for? Does the stun check saves? Which save does it check? Which power does it use? Is "attack power" weapon damage, physical power or accuracy? Does the intimidation check saves? How long does it last? How long does it last? Which save does it check? Which power does it use?

Image Self seems like it could be silly, but I'll reserve judgment as I haven't tested it.

I'm not sure what Channel Image does. And why do I care that I can cast Illuminate through it when Illuminate is a waste of points in the first place?

I'm not sure I like what Master Illusionist does, giving a bunch of random benefits to other talents.

TL;DR: Remove Disruption Shield, scale your talents properly, don't get so caught up in the flavour.

I haven't checked out Arcane Trickster because I have no interest in a rogue subclass, but it looks like an unfocused mess of random abilities from your listing. Oh, and Street Golems' "pool of random upgrades" sounds just as awful as the different types of image were for Illusionist, at least if I'm interpreting the summarized description right.

Skiamach
Yeek
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Feb 13, 2017 12:53 pm

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#10 Post by Skiamach »

I got an error when starting a new game with this addon loaded:

Lua Error: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:86: talent already exists with id T_ABDUCTION
At [C]:-1
At [C]:-1 assert
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:86 newTalent
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:38 newTalent
At /data-now-you-see-me/talents/cunning/void-combat.lua:58 f
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:44 loadDefinition
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:40 load
At /data-now-you-see-me/talents/now-you-see-me-talents.lua:180 f
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:44 loadDefinition
At /hooks/now-you-see-me/load.lua:13
At [string "return function(l, self, data) local ok=false..."]:1 triggerHook
At /mod/load.lua:265
At [C]:-1 require
At /engine/Module.lua:160 load
At /engine/Module.lua:1030 instanciate
At /engine/utils.lua:2284 showMainMenu
At /engine/init.lua:199
At [C]:-1 dofile
At /loader/init.lua:217

Mister_Vimes
Wayist
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:50 am

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#11 Post by Mister_Vimes »

Thanks, Skiamach. It looks like another addon is using that talent name. What other addons are you using?

I don't mind changing my Talent's name. :mrgreen:

Mister_Vimes
Wayist
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:50 am

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#12 Post by Mister_Vimes »

Great feedback, Arcvasti. You have some good insights.

I should probably give some more details as to why I chose to use Cunning rather than Mental Save for illusions' distractions. First, I checked similar talents (eg Advanced Shadowmancy/Stone) and found that they don't allow for saves at all! But that would be ridiculously overpowered on images. So I determined that I wanted the save to be less like protection from effects and more like trap detection or ability to see stealth. The problem is, basing it on those stats directly would inequitably boost the power of the Cunning/Survival category and some types of equipment. So I elected to simply base it on the Cunning stat, allowing for Actors to have a chance at defeating illusions without having to jerry-rig another stat. The fact that the deception power degrades as the image is attacked helps to smooth things out.

Those are some great insights on Disruption Shield. I hadn't ever tried to break that talent before, so I didn't realize how breakable it is. I'll look at doing something different. Thanks for your suggestions on that.

You're right, there are some aspects of a lot of the talents which use linear scaling with a hard cap. I know that's not unheard of in the base game, but I will still go over those talents and see about switching the scaling over as much as possible.

On Shadow Bind, here's a snapshot of my thought process:
1) I really like the concept. A lot.
2) It makes zero sense to summon the shadow of a shadow.
3) It's also a bit silly to allow the Spell category built around magical shadows to be powerless against actual, you know, shadows. Since they resist darkness already, the rest of the category can't affect them at all.

I do completely understand the aversion to "special case" mechanics (I'm the same way normally), but I didn't see another way around it without destroying the talent or making it nonsensically impotent versus Doomed shadows.

The primary reason I randomized Create Image is because it's just fun, visually speaking. (That's the same reason I added so many types of image instead of just three or four.) The chief job of your images is to be a distraction, and they accomplish this just by existing. Granted, the lowest-level mouse is not quite as effective as the Fire Wyrm, but that's why you begin to summon two images at level five- to keep from getting shafted by the random selection. Also, when your images actually start dealing damage, the damage is the same no matter the type of image.

You're right, I do need to rewrite the descriptions of Sparkling Cloud, Glamour: Frightful Aura, and possibly Shadow Cast. Also apparently Channel Image.

Brilliant Vortex went through a number of iterations before I settled on it. The physical damage is an artifact of that process more than anything else, so I agree, I should change that to light or arcane.

The mind damage on Illusory Insanity though... I'm not sure. Even with four potential damage types, the Illusionist has less flexibility than the Archmage. If you're investing in images enough so that mind damage starts to become a factor, you're probably not dealing much damage in the way of one or more of the other types.

I totally understand not being interested in certain classes, but I'm curious- what is your opinion on what makes a class unfocused as opposed to focused? Both of these classes seem to hold together well for me, although granted I created them so my perspective is skewed. But I would love to know what you would suggest as an example of a focused class versus an unfocused one?

Thanks again for taking the time evaluate and comment!

PseudoLoneWolf
Wyrmic
Posts: 257
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 7:12 pm

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#13 Post by PseudoLoneWolf »

Mister_Vimes wrote:Thanks, Skiamach. It looks like another addon is using that talent name. What other addons are you using?

I don't mind changing my Talent's name. :mrgreen:
Doombringer from the official Ashes of Urh'Rok addon/DLC has a talent called Abduction that would conflict with this.
Let slip the toast of war.

Mister_Vimes
Wayist
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:50 am

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#14 Post by Mister_Vimes »

PseudoLoneWolf wrote:
Mister_Vimes wrote:Thanks, Skiamach. It looks like another addon is using that talent name. What other addons are you using?

I don't mind changing my Talent's name. :mrgreen:
Doombringer from the official Ashes of Urh'Rok addon/DLC has a talent called Abduction that would conflict with this.
*headdesk* Of course. :oops:

Thanks PseudoLoneWolf!

PseudoLoneWolf
Wyrmic
Posts: 257
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 7:12 pm

Re: Now You See Me: Illusionist and Arcane Trickster

#15 Post by PseudoLoneWolf »

While you're at it, I just noticed - Polarization conflicts as well, but this time with Embers of Rage (on the player-unusable Empyreal class that is added there as a boss). So both of those should be edited if you want people to be able to play the addon with the official DLC.
Let slip the toast of war.

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