New melee class: Ziguranth Weapon Lord / Barbarian

[daftigod]

Unlock
-unlocks along with anti-magic

Pluses
-antimagic at birth. one point in resolve and full access to antimagiic tree, and antimagic weapons
-ambidextrous, can wield anything in either hand as long as stat requirements are met.
-has access to some berserker and some bulwark talents
-specializes in torture/execution themed tree with massives melee damages. many talents named after medieval torture devices. there are literally hundreds of badass names to pick from. this is also thematic with the ziguranth.
-one point in a cheaper rush talent at birth (Sprint). less stamina used and lower cool down but only 3-7 square range. doesn't need to talent an enemy, kind of like ghoul's leap. also access to the normal rush talent but no points in it.

Minuses
-antimagic at birth. severely limits weapon options
-weak to magic unless heavily invested in the antimagic tree
-low cunning works as a counter to getting great one handed weapons or knives
-low amount of AoE talents
-no runes

Birth
+6 str, +2 dex, -6 mag, +2 will, -3 cun, +1 con
Starting life 110
Life per level +12
+25% bleeding resist
+25% poison resist
+25% stun/freeze resist
+25% pinning resist
-10% all elemental/magic resist (-10 cap also)
-starts in zigur with a 2handed axe and a longsword. leather armor

Quests
-first quest is the arena in zigur. much like the arena in derth, fighting other town npc's. the player has to prove himself to the town by beating the arena owner who is a low level ziguranth guard
-second quest, the town asks the player to hunt around in the local hills to find a suspected mage who has been stirring up some trouble by summoning snakes and insects into zigur. it turns about to be a low level corrupted summoner who is related in some way to the grand corruptor. when the player kills him...
-third quest - ?


Beginning Talents:
Butcher - Hack at the three squares in front of you with both weapons for 100% (200% @lvl5) damage. 8 stamina, 4 cool down
Sprint - Run as fast as possible for 3 squares (scales to 7). does not need to target enemy. 12 stamina, 6 cooldown
Saw - Spins around attacking all enemies in melee range for 100%-200%. 32 stamina
Dual Strike (chance to stun) - 1 pt

gonna try to flesh out some more ideas soon

[Rectifier]

I like where this is going, I've always wanted a Luddite character.

[tromboneandrew]

Sounds like it might be fun to play. I didn't see a whole lot of torture talents listed yet.

[bricks]

Hopefully this doesn't sound too critical; I do like the idea of an antimagic class:

Doesn't sound too different from Berserker, and it doesn't really seem very "antimagic" to me. The weakness to magic seems completely backwards, and I don't think any class should start with immunities.

What does cunning have to do with one-handed weapons and knives?

Giving the class ambidexterity really diminishes one of the Reaver's core concepts.

Butcher, Saw, Dual Strike are just slightly modified versions of existing talents.

I think you should run with the "weapon lord" and wilder concepts. Giving some sort of special weapon interaction (crafting, improving, etc.) would be a great way to counteract the downside of the useless arcane-powered weapon drops. I think you could do a lot with the "torturer" theme, too, though most of the ideas I have sound a lot like Cursed talents.

[faustgeist]

Champion of the anti-magic camp. Great idea!

I agree with Bricks & think some of the Minuses are a bit harsh:

Being especially vulnerable to magic 'unless heavily invested' seems backward for character concept. You point out the big handicap of magic item selection and no runes... this I feel is the natural balance to beginning with 'normal' or even 'decent' anti-magic at the start.

It would also make sense for this character design to reach limits of anti-magic beyond which any other class can attain.

A few ideas:

Quests
-Raid on magic-users camp... a 2-lmap forest full of low-mid lv magic users. 'The Training Grounds'. Our Ziguranth hero is sent to this zone to purge the unclean! The boss being an administrator from the hidden mage city.
-Completion of the above triggers the next Quest: 'Hunted!', where a slightly over powered mage party is sent to hunt YOU down. Appearing as an enemy adventuring party on the world map.

Talent Trees

Technique / Custom Armor (Class)
-Spike armor 1-5 (Passive)
The attacker will bleed for a % of armor hardiness for 1-4 turns after successfully striking the player with this technique active.
-Dense armor 1-5 (Activated)
By fusing the plates of your armor you increase it's hardiness and protection at the expense of -X Dex and -X% move speed.
- Mastercraft (Active) 1-5
The Zen of armor crafting is strong with you. +x Armor, +x Defense to the suit you are wearing. Only applies to Massive armor. Costs % stamina to maintain.
-Plate of Heroes 1-5 (Passive)
Months of training have given you insight into armor construction & professional repair. Your armor now grants a larger % reduction to be critically hit. At lv 5 also gives a +x% to movement speed.

Technique / Combat Suffering (Class)
-Iron Maiden 1-5 (Activated/melee)
you attempt to grapple your opponent, hugging them close to your (spiked?) armor. A successful grab will immediately damage at X% weapon and cause your opponent to bleed x% + any Spiked Armour stacking, for 1-4 turns.
-Knee Cap 1-5 (Activated/melee)
A cruel maneuver which strikes the opponent leg and does 90% damage + either stuns them with pain, or reduces their move by X%. The effect is random.
-Red Hot 1-5

Technique / Magebane (Class)
-Show of Strength (passive) 1-5
Rigorous training enables you to withstand even the darkest magicks. lasting effects, such as magical burning, bleeding, and freezing are reduced in their duration. 1turn/per investment kv
-Straight Edge (Activated/melee)
Nothing matters but the death of magic. Your determination is clearly visible and unshakable. You grow % immune to freezing/stun effects and there is a small % chance a magic wielding opponent will flee from your rampage. % increases with Ability investment

Nothing fully fleshed out... but can be fun!

~Robin

[daftigod]

Wow thanks for the comments and great ideas guys!

Bricks not too critical at all, was exactly the brainstorming i was hoping for. I agree with all of your points, and you've managed to read my mind on what I originally envisioned: a hybrid zerker/reaver (that can dual-wield 2h weaps) with somewhat crippling handicaps to keep it from becoming too strong. The wilder aspect is not something i thought of at first but it does make sense. And the weapon crafting aspect is a beaut of an idea as well.

My main beef with the current berserker as it stands now is it's lack of dual-wield. For what is supposed to be the physically strongest class in the game, it honestly doesn't feel that strong with one 2h sword or a sword/dagger. This is the whole reason for starting this thread to be honest, and I really really don't want to step on the reaver's toes by creating an alternate dual-wield class. Because I love playing them!

The reaver is great fun as a class, but it has a very different play style then what I'm imagining here. Reavers have several high damage ranged attacks at their disposal, depend on vim, have access to the bone tree, and use magic as a primary stat.

The "Zigurat" would be as pure of a melee class as you could possibly get, with it's good mobility being the only way to deal with mages and archers. If it's feasible to have a class that can only attack the tile directly next to it, and still be able to survive, then that's what I'm going for here. Even zerks have several good cone attacks at their disposal, this class would have none (if possible).

Faustgeist - wow! Those talents seem perfect on first glance. With a little play time to see how they work I wouldn't mind seeing that list verbatim in this class. Good tree name, good talent names, good effects. Nice! I also agree that being born into antimagic, you should be able to get farther with it. Maybe another advanced antimagic tree would work?

I agree with both of you guys on the weak-to-magic being backwards thing. But, there has to be negatives with a class like this. Dual-wield 2h weapons is totally ridiculous, you could one-shot just about everything but bosses. There needs to be drawbacks and balance mechanisms. While my idea for the class being weak to magic at first or having low cunning don't quite fit, I do think that a penalty other than just being antimagic is needed. I'm still not sure what to do here, but I do think a handicap of some sort is in order.

What do you guys think?

edit - just thought of one more thing... it would be cool to have to beat a zigurat/barbarian/weponlord to unlock one. Maybe right after you beat the orc corruptor in the antimagic quest, the arena owner, who is a weaponlord thing himself, challenges you to a duel. Since he is a wicked strong dude, it's a yes/no question but if you say yes and beat him, you get to play as one in the next life! This would also allow the player to see the class in action before he gets to use it, like a teaser. It would also be a nice self-contained challenge for the player to overcome in order to get the unlock, but still skippable if he or she finds it too difficult.

edit2- Just one more thing, the arena owner has a crafting shop where you can turn in your arcane tainted weapons and turn them into decent or crappy antimagic weapons. Maybe it can imbue gems or something. Maybe it can upgrade antimagic weapons and armor into slightly better versions for a ton of gold. Anyway, shops will be much less useful to this class and access to a different specialty shop would be nice. But again, balanced. So if you beat the arena guy, you get his crafting shop. Maybe he knows the transmogrification guy too and they worked out a deal where arcane things get re-routed to his shop for smashing and melting and whatnot. Maybe the shop only takes arcane artifacts or randarts and when you trade in enough, you get an artifact antimagic piece. Who knows, I do like the idea of having a reason to return to Zigur throughout the quest though!

[NEHZ]

If you want immunities/resistances on your character, try adding them into the talents. Cursed for example have their healing reduction as part of a talent.

Additional talent for the magebane tree:

Execution
Activated Talent
cost: 20 stamina
use: 1 turn
range: melee
Try to kill the magic user in a way that serves as a warning for all others. Hit a target for 50% weapon damage. You permenantly gain 1 willpower and physical save for every 10 users* slain this way, up to a maximum of 4 willpower and 4 physical save per talent level.

*targets are checked for their mana/etc to see wether they are magic users.

[bricks]

I agree with granting the immunities through talents. Passive immunities are kind of a no-brainer, so if they could be a timed effect or a sustain it would make the effects more unique and interesting. Regarding weakness to magic - if you give the class an "advanced" antimagic tree, you could include some activated/sustained talents that make the player more susceptible to spell damage. Say, double the effectiveness of all infusions for a short time, but your resistance to non-physical/mind damage falls. (an extreme example) Keep in mind that magic damage is the primary source of burst damage in the game (although archers challenge that standard), so starting with a resistance penalty is going to severely reduce survivability.