Undead abilities

[Sirrocco]

psionics - tattoo.

Alternately, we could move it a bit beyond the whole "stick it on the skin" thing. Instead, say that basically everyone has a certain amount of soul energy (or whatever) that they can use to support ... stuff. Runes/infusions/etc (which are really going to want to have a collective name. Investments, perhaps?) start out as, essentially, seeds. You absorb them into yourself (somehow or other) which activates them and unfolds them into something usable, but when you take that bit of your soul back, the pattern collapses. Thus, infusions would be collections of strange herbs, which would be absorbed and change you internally. Transformation is something that wilders are pretty big on. Runes would be coiled bits of magic that would plate themselves on your skin, and basically function like wands that are affixed to your body (as they do). Psionics might have soulshards - cunningly crafted crystals that would, when energized, float near you. Corruptions might have bloodstones - actual tainted stones that would be introduced into the body. Pacts make a degree of sense there as well - that there would be a demon out there somewhere that would allow you to call upon a portion of its power from time to time in return for the use of your soul energies. Those might focus on attack powers and possibly some sort of summoning ability.

I'm not sure you'd want to include the Cursed/Doomed in this one. I can't see a way to include a hate-based investment that wouldn't require some drawback along with the power. I suppose if the theme was that it always included some disadvantage with the advantage... Perhaps those could be the bloodstones - little packets of crystallized dark power, that you accept into you body so that you can turn their might against their creators.

I think it would be cool, though, if we're going to have a lot of different kinds of these things, to have them more strongly (and perhaps explicitly) typed. Pacts might assess some cost in blood every time you used them - a price you pay for power. Bloodstones might actually be sustains based on HP.


edit: hrmmm... We may be topic-splintering here a bit.

[Grey]

- corruptions => ??? (mark ?)

Taints?

[Final Master]

A breakoff of this discussion is now located here - http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=24184

[eronarn]

Anyway, just some random brainstorming for racial tree, for the Higher (all based on their racial purity ideas):
1 - Advanced Learning (passive): Increase experience gain by 1%, and randomly increases 3 stats by +1.

Experience gain boosts that cost experience to obtain are bad design. If they're too high and pay off quickly, they're must-haves. If they're too low, they'll hurt you in the present for gains (typically much) later on - but in a boring, predictable way as opposed to 'do I save this limited-use item for later and maybe die now'.

Consider Treasure Hunter in ADOM (you find more loot): you have to give up some talents to get it, but later on you'll have more talents than you need, and it helps you all game. Consequently pretty much everyone takes it even though it's detrimental to your survival early on.

Random stat boosts are bad design because in games like this most characters don't value stats equally. Where else in the game does investing in a talent give you a random/uncontrollable boost?