Chronomancer (Class Idea: with Revisions added)

[edge2054]

A common set for all classes?

Spacetime weaving (skill)

Static History (No paradox cost, 200 cooldown)- Reduce Paradox by WIL*skill level by carefully 'rearranging' your history to make it consistent. You step out of time (like time bubble) for 10 turns so monsters might surround you but cannot attack while you do this action.

Really like this. I wanted something cooler then just a straight Paradox reduction talent and I think this is it. The only thing that needs to be fixed (and this may already be the case) is how cooldowns continue to go down when you time bubble yourself. My last mage loved to abuse time bubble for the cooldown counter.

Twinning matter (Special paradox cost) - You duplicate an object in your inventory. The paradox cost is 5 times the purchase price from a store for the object; artifacts cannot be duplicated since they are all reflections of a single object outside time.

Another good idea but I think this one might see a lot of abuse potential. Not only can you end up with infinite healing potions if you're willing to press five enough times on your numberpad, it also would let you artificially inflate your paradox level before a big fight if you where inclined to do so by duplicating something really expensive.

Making it so duplicate items cease to exist if they leave your person (so you can't sell them or store them in the dungeon) and limiting the number of duplicate items in your possession to 1 per talent point would fix the first issue. Limiting the gp value would fix the second.

Deja vu (paradox 35) - Rearranging the past, you "remember" where all items on the floor of your level are located. At 3/5 you remember the floor plan. At 5/5 you remember where monsters are located for a few turns.

Another really great idea! Well an old idea but a great way to go about it!

Damage smearing (paradox 70, activated) - When you take damage from any source, it is divided over the next level+1 turns. For example if you are hit for 250 damage and the skill is at 4/5, you instead take 50 damage each turn for 5 turns. (Since the initial damage already accounts for armor, there is NO reduction of the damage.) The mechanics for this already exist I think in the fire/poison damage code?

There's a temporal spell that already does this. But the way things are going I think the temporal tree will stay a mage thing and have some of it incorporated in new ways into the Chronomancy meta-class. Again not a unique idea but good implementation and I LOVE the name!!

[Taxorgian]

As to high Paradox, I think there might also be another side-effect.

If Paradox>=500, you have destabilized the spacetime around you severely enough there is a chance of a random effect of nature trying to repair itself. If any of these happen, Paradox is reduced by 40.

With a (Paradox-499)/5000 chance, you will randomly have one of these effects each turn:

Danger Room: You are immediately teleported to another place on your level that is (re)filled by monsters that are 10-25 levels OOD (with respect to dungeon location or your own level, whichever is higher). Monsters with distance attacks are favored. If Paradox>=700 you will not be able to teleport using any means until all of them are gone (or you are).

Black thirst: 1d5 beneficial potions (slime mold juice would not count) vanish from your inventory. If Paradox>=600 lesser potions and remove poison/disease are preferentially skipped. If Paradox>=800 healing and mana potions are preferentially skipped. If Paradox>=1000 full healing and full mana potions are always taken first followed by greater healing and greater mana, and ego potions are always taken first.

De-equip: One non-artifact item that you are wearing will vanish, if any. (If Paradox>=600 and you are only wearing artifact equipment, one of the other three is chosen.) If Paradox>=700 the most valuable item will be the one taken. If Paradox>=1000 any item in your inventory which is identical to the item that vanished also disappears.

Perfect stun: You are stunned for 15 turns (no resistance check). If Paradox>=700 a random monster on the level is summoned beside you or another monster typical of the level is summoned. If Paradox>=1000 the monster will be OOD and 3 other OOD monsters will be generated on the level.

[edge2054]

I like the idea. At first I thought the percentages might be to low but since it's checked every turn maybe not. At 750 Paradox the chance is around .05% and at 1000 Paradox the chance is a little greater then .1% (or 1 out of every 5,000 turns and 1 out of every 1,000 turns respectively). So maybe it is still a bit on the low side.

I think the effects might need some work for the justification. I'm not saying I don't like the effects from a game perspective, they sound like fun, especially the monster pit. But shutting down Conveyance and other teleportation effects or halving all damage from chronomantic sources until Paradox goes under 500 might make more sense. Again though these effects aren't as much FUN!

On this subject the name and some of the general idea for the Paradox system comes from White Wolf's Mage the Ascension. Granted I didn't actually play that game but a buddy of mine did and explained roughly how it all worked. I guess in that game when your Paradox got to high Paradox Demons started to conspire to kill you off (but I may be misremembering, like I said I never played it). Something along those lines might be fun. Maybe even direct confrontation with powerful Time Elementals set on fixing all the damage the player has caused.

Anyway, while I was at work I came up with some numbers for Paradox. Keep in mind that Chronomantic powers should be balanced around the player having a Paradox of 200 or so, in fact I think Paradox Mages should start with 200 Paradox instead of 0 to reinforce this (and the other two classes with a 100 Paradox).

Here's the formulas for effect and cost.
Effect: *1+(Paradox/200)
Cost: *1+(Paradox/100)

To illustrate a mages manabolt might look like this (not sure if it does this is just for illustration purposes).
Damage = Talent Level*Spell Power.
Cost = 12 Mana
A manabolt that used Paradox instead of mana might look like this.
Damage = Talent Level * (Spell Power/2) * (1+(Paradox/200))
Cost = 4*(1+(Paradox/100) Paradox

In other words the damage and cost of the two manabolts is equal when both characters have equal spell power and the Chronomantic version sits at 200 Paradox. When the Chronomancer sits at less then 200 Paradox his spells will be weaker and cost less to cast. When he sits above they'll be more damaging and cost more.

I haven't figured out the formulas yet for the other drawbacks. Playing with some numbers tonight I think they probably should be squared or cubed. Something like Paradox/300 * Paradox/300 for spell failure chance would give a 1% failure rate at 300 Paradox and a 4% failure rate at 600 Paradox. Cubing (2x2x2) it gives an 8% chance at 600 Paradox. At 800 Paradox we get roughly 7% for squaring and 17.5% for cubing. I think cubing makes the most sense and I like the way it scales.

[Taxorgian]

Actually I meant these as statistical probability: for example 750 Paradox is a 5% chance per turn (which may be too high, but is much higher than your quote). But the 5000 number in the denominator is open to discussion. Perhaps it should be 50000? (So at 750 this happens roughly every 200 turns on average.)

My justification for the types of actions? For Danger Room and Perfect Stun, the universe is actually trying to fix the problem. And guess who the problem is? And since you might have duplicated things, it's only fair if the universe absorbs some of them, with a not-so-subtle aim of "fixing the problem."

[edge2054]

Yeah, I didn't move my decimals last night >.> But you're right, 5% is to high. 50,000 sounds right and puts us at a 1% chance per turn at 1,000 Paradox.

I see what you're saying about nature trying to get rid of you because you're like a cancer that's causing the Paradox. I just don't see nature teleporting you to a monster pit to do it. Stripping duplicate items or items obtained through the use of Chronomancy makes sense though, it's a reactionary process to fixing things that are wrong. The stunning could be justified too, taking back all the moments of time you've skipped or accelerated yourself through. Both of those examples show a balance that's typical of what we think of when we ... well think of the nature or the universe seeking balance.

I guess it's really just Danger Room and the summoning effect of Perfect Stun I have a problem with. Sadly though Danger Room is the most interesting of the effects and definitely the most fun sounding. Maybe if we tweak it?

So instead of it being another spot on the level what if it transports you to a special level that's outside of time and you have to deal with time elementals or paradox demons or something along those lines? In other words nature doesn't dump you someplace it knows is dangerous but instead dumps you where it believes a paradox should go, it just happens to be filled with stuff that doesn't think you belong?

The perfect stun could just summon a paradox demon outright. So it's not so much nature trying to kill you but a demon sensing what's going on and taking advantage of it. All nature is doing is trying to take back the time you stole.

[edge2054]

Here's another completed talent tree. Have to flesh out the numbers on the talents though.

Chronomancy/Time Travel (generic/mastery)
- Forsight: Allows access to a shop that sells scrolls and potions but will not buy anything from you. After exiting the shop you take another turn.
- Backtrack: Teleport to any explored area on the level with in range. Range increases with talent points and willpower. At level five can target another creature. (Taxes general idea but renamed)
- Temporal Reprieve (self): You regain health as though 2 turns (per talent point invested) had passed. In addition all abilities on cooldown are 2 turns (per talent point invested) closer to becoming available.
- Time Skip: Moves target 1 + 1 turn per talent point into the future.

[Taxorgian]

I think the "paradox demon" concept runs the risk of a C&D (do you know why ToME was renamed in the Olden Days?). And I don't think nature in this sense is "evil."* But perhaps instead Danger Room and Perfect Stun teleport monsters that are or were on the same level as yourself (you manipulate space and time, so both of these are reasonable)? In the case of Perfect Stun, one of the monsters is always moved beside you and the others are within a radius of 10 [or maybe max(1, (1500-Paradox) div 100] from you. Since there is time manipulation being corrected, both of these level up the monsters before they put them beside or near you. Danger Room chooses the 8 highest-level monsters (or ALL of them?) that were generated at the start of the level with tiebreaks given to monsters with distance attacks in the former case.

And it needs to be nasty enough that there needs to be some self-balancing by the player. You won't be killed on the spot, but it will be a hard way for you to maintain a lot of paradox. (To reduce danger of a C&D should the term be renamed as Spacetime Destabilization? It's also more specific.)

*Yes I know the Greek word daimonos does not have a necessary implication of evil, but using 'demon' in English over, for example, 'daemon' does imply that. Although there is a demon in the game, the Fire Imp, in Tolkien I think most of these are associated with Morgoth and, aside from the odd holdouts like Durin's Bane, were destroyed at the Battle of Angband.

[Taxorgian]

Chronomancy/Time Travel (generic/mastery)
- Forsight [sp]: Allows access to a shop that sells scrolls and potions but will not buy anything from you. After exiting the shop you take another turn.
- Backtrack: Teleport to any explored area on the level with in range. Range increases with talent points and willpower. At level five can target another creature. (Taxes general idea but renamed)
- Temporal Reprieve (self): You regain health as though 2 turns (per talent point invested) had passed. In addition all abilities on cooldown are 2 turns (per talent point invested) closer to becoming available.
- Time Skip: Moves target 1 + 1 turn per talent point into the future.

I think Temporal Reprieve should be swapped with Foresight since the latter is a really powerful effect especially after gold gets pretty common. I'd cut the cooldown effect to 1 (additional) turn per talent point though otherwise this is really ripe for abuse IMO irrespective of where it is on the talent tree.

[edge2054]

You bring up some good points.

Turns out, after some digging, that the term used in Mage is Paradox Spirit (I think my friend just called them Demon because that's how he viewed them). Paradox in Mage doesn't function really how we're using it here either. The term is the same and they both are a means to limiting magic but it's not really a resource pool as far as I can tell. So I don't really believe either case would be a call for a C&D. Not to mention the fact that the term Paradox and the term Demon have both been around for a lot longer then any of white wolf's games.

But yeah, Spacetime Destabilization is more accurate. Temporal Instability would be another one. My concern is with spacing, will these options fit on the screen? If they do fit will it look to cluttered? Positive Energy gets shortened to just Positive. So either of these would probably have to be abbreviated.

I like the revisions though to Perfect Stun and Danger Room. The old version implied an intelligent out to get you mechanic from nature that I didn't like. In the case of Danger Room maybe having the actual 'room' just be an area where teleportation magic ceases to function? So you actually have to deal with the monsters instead of just teleporting out?

And I agree with it needing to be a self-balancing resource for the player. I think we're both on the same page with that. Pushing the resource to high is going to get the character killed. Either a spell will fail at the wrong time, or it'll backfire, or nature will attempt to correct the holes you're creating. The player may get lucky running high for awhile but eventually the luck will run out.

*edit for your last post* Yeah, foresight might need to come later. As to temporal reprieve I'll go back and balance it once we have outlines done for the trees. It'll probably end up something more like 1 + (WILL*SL/100)*1+(Paradox/200) turns or 6 turns at 40 Will, 5 talent points, and 200 Paradox.

[darkgod]

Oh man you sure are prolific both of you
I expect some kind of resume at the end of your thoughts

[edge2054]

Alright, got some number crunching for ya DG. Have three talent trees fully stated out for the Infinite Traveler. Going to start a new thread (one for each class but just one for now) so the topic can be broken down into more manageable pieces..

I'm using what I remember of the old Tome 2 scaling based off the killer bunnies skill spoiler.

[edge2054]

Looking over the other hybrid classes I'm thinking we'll have to go with Stamina as another resource like the Shadow Blade and Arcane Blade. I'm planning a Paradox tree for Paradox Mages that will give them finer control of their Paradox resource (among other things) so that will help to differentiate the hybrids from the more focused class.

So for Infinite Traveler I'm thinking Combat/Dual-Wielding (both of them) and Lethality for class talents and Combat Training and Survival for generic talents. Dirty Fighting could be available at level 10. That's in addition to Temporal Combat (name pending) and Probability Control for class talents and Advanced Time Travel (available at level 10), Time Travel, and Spacetime Weaving for generic. (So that gives him 5 class trees and 4 generic trees with 1 of each available at level 10, probably needs some more available at 10 but I think it's a good start).

So far for the Time Warden I'm thinking Two Handed Weapons and three trees that are still being worked out Temporal Combat, Inertia Control, and Evolution (not fond of the name of the last one) for class talents and Combat Training, Spacetime Weaving, and Survival for generic talents. No thoughts yet on advanced talent trees. So he's looking a bit lighter on talent selection.

Here's what I have so far for Inertia Control, Temporal Combat, and Evolution.

Chronomancy/Inertia Control (class/mastery)
- Inertia Theft (steals hit and damage from adjacent enemies and adds it to your own)
- Sonic Swing (melee): Hits the target for 120% of weapon damage and knocks it back. At level 3 it hits all creatures in a cone as long as the initial attack hits. (description needs work, basically you accelerate your swing so it breaks the sound barrier).
- Inertial Charge (kinda like rush but doesn't require you target a mob, so it functions more like a short range teleport. Adds damage to your next attack)
- Gravity Well (AoE pin and damage each round. Creatures with low strength are stunned instead of pinned)

Chronomancy/Temporal Combat
- Mounting Assault (ups weapon speed with each successive strike on targeted creature, ends when you switch targets or the creature dies)
- Lingering Image (self, activated): You move so swiftly you appear to be in two places at once. Attacks have a 30% chance to miss you for the next 1 + 1 per talent point invested turns. (Maybe should do something else too or instead, resembles evasion quite a bit).
- 2*Missing entry, maybe a straight essence of speed type power would work or a targeted slow... open to ideas for sure.

Chronomancy/Evolution
- Chronomantic Metabolism (self): Heals X damage per turn for 5 turns and has a chance each turn (10% per talent point) to cure you of any poison or disease that’s currently effecting you.
- Evolutionary Perfection (Self): For the next 2 turns (+2 turns per talent point invested) you gain +10 Str, Dex, and Con as well as +10 to hit, damage, physical crit, defense and armor. (I'm not going to pretend that this is balanced yet, also the name needs to be changed, maybe Form of the Brute or Hulk Out!!, you get the idea)
- De-evolution (range 15): Creatures other then the caster in a radius of X devolve into savage beasts gaining +2 Str, Dex, and Con but lose -4 Magic, Wil, and Cunning for 5 turns. While the spell persists, affected creatures will attack the closest creature to them, regardless of faction and will favor melee over ranged or spell attacks. If more then one creature is equal distance from the affected creature, it will choose a random target of those targets available or attack the last creature that caused it damage, preferring the later. Radius increases with each talent point invested. Stat changes increase and decrease with spellpower. (again needs balancing)
- Missing entry

[edge2054]

And for the Paradox Mage I'm aiming for all new trees so only a single resource pool. It will share some trees with the Infinite Traveler and the Time Warden though.

Class
Age Manipulation
- Slow Decay (damage over time)
- Ashes to Ashes (direct damage spell, turns active slow decays into a nuke)
- Turn Back the Clock (aoe that lowers level and stats)
- Missing Entry

Timeline Manipulation (in no particular order)
- Destabilize Lifeline: (fully outlined in this thread)
- End of the Line: (fully outlined in this thread)
- Temporal Clone: (fully outlined in this thread)
- Space-Time Prodigy: +2 Magic and +2 willpower per level

Advanced Chronomancy (at level 10, outlined in this thread)


Generic
Timetravel (fully outlined in this thread and full stated in the infinite traveler thread)
Spacetime Weaving (fully outlined in this thread and full stated in the infinite traveler thread)
Paradox
- Paradox Control: Lowers the chance of adverse effects happening from high paradox levels
- Revision: (see the reincarnate description earlier in this thread, renamed it)
- Some sort of clone or twin spell
- not sure

And that's what I have so far. A spatial tree might be interesting. Some speed effects would be good too.

[Taxorgian]

Chronomancy/Temporal Combat
Mounting Assault
Lingering Image
Blurring Strike: Your arms appear to be in 8 places at once, doing damage to each monster adjacent to you. Damage is dependent on Paradox and DEX. If used during Danger Room, it stuns you for Paradox div 200 turns.
Displacing Blow: You hit a monster for half power. If it connects, the monster is displaced to somewhere it was earlier (or if easier to code, a random spot a given distance away).

Paradox talent idea
Door to the Past - Instantly teleports you up [level] dungeon levels, or to the surface if there are not enough levels above you. Since this is a teleport spell, it does not work in Danger Room at all. (Particularly if they don't get Teleport:Angolwen...)

[edge2054]

Thanks Tax. I used both those ideas to round out the Temporal Combat tree.

The Infinite Warden is almost finished up. Need to work up the Advanced Timetravel tree and I think he'll be good.

Current class trees are...
Combat Duel-Wielding (both of them)
Lethality
Fate Mastery
Probability Control
Temporal Combat
Dirty Fighting (Available at 10)

Generic trees
Spacetime Weaving
Timetravel
Combat Training
Survival
Advanced Timetravel (Available at 10)

So far for Advanced Timetravel I have..
- Rethread: Basically Alter Reality from Tome 2. Teleports the player to the last set of stairs used and repopulates the level. Will and Talent Level improve the drops.
- Door to the Past??: Might fit here better then in Paradox.

But I'm thinking about merging it with some of the Paradox Mage ideas I had for the Chronomancy tree and ditching that tree or repopulating it. In which case this would be an Infinite Traveler and Paradox Mage tree. That would give us Extension (Improves the duration of effects on the target) and Borrowed Time (take extra actions and then be stunned once the actions are used up).

Extension's going to be a tricky one to balance and will probably require exceptions, especially if two classes get it. The new temporal combat talent Echoing Strike being one of them. Making it only effect Chronomancy would help so we don't have to go through every cunning or combat talent to check for balance.