Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AbstractTraitorHero]

((noir isn't that squishy she has scales and some constitution I believe?s I also find it funny how not many people are weirded out by the eyeballs on noirs wing's))

[Pancaek]

Depends on the mission, honestly. If it sounds like fun I'll join, but otherwise I'll continue to chill with overseer guy.

"Statement: That does sound like  a nice job, being the bureaucratic bogeyman.

Query: You are still an active duty operative? What is your specialisation?
Additional query: Did you go on any amusing or interesting missions lately?"

[Lenglon]

((Before you start on magic > melee (which I do think it currently is, but for versatility and being ranged rather than for actual power), has anyone tried going melee in a responsible manner? As in: avoiding unnecessary fights, and when do actually fight, do what you can to tilt the scales in your favor) Because as far as I've seen, the few melee attempts we've had have suffered from self-destructive decisions.))

((Aylia is one of the stronger characters, and uses magic heavilly, but Aylia in combat...
M1: no combat
M2: a couple close calls, but no real combat. maybe one ranged attack? (miss)
M3: a few ranged attacks, all misses. no other combat.
M4: one magic-enhanced melee attack against a immobile target, instant-kill))

((I think your perception of melee as being weak is distorted because the tests have overlapped with fighting unnecessary fights and fighting them without exploiting available resources. to see effective melee, look at Dar and Clunkers. yes, both use magic when appropriate, however, they're primarily melee combatants. yes, Dar enhances his meele attacks, but what he does is he applies Str and End buffs. those could theoredically be replaced by just being stronger or tougher.))

[syvarris]

((The problem with that argument is that Dar is one of the strongest melee combatants in the game, despite being both a specialist mage and a literal housecat.  He is the exact opposite of the character build that should be effective in melee, but because he uses magic focused on melee, he's more effective than most mundane characters.  Not only that, he's far more flexible; Dar is a druid, and is capable of shapeshifting similar to Aylia.  He could totally become a bird, or a bear, without losing his buffing abilities.  Sure, he doesn't have a spec in it, but he does have a jumping spec, which is probably less useful than the outright flight a shapeshifting spec would use.  He can also learn to magically heal, or use crowd-control spells like vine control, or summon animals, or any number of other druidic spells, all of which would run off the same single stat that all his other abilities run off of.  This is without him needing any significant stat investments beyond will, which means he has much more freedom than a mundane char who has to focus on str/con/dex to even rival him in a single role.

Oh, and that mundane char?  They'd start with a +2 in a single weapon skill, which carries penalties.  They could have an edged or blunt spec, which lets them deal good damage but means they're harmless when disarmed.  Ranged has the same weakness, but isn't useful in melee.  Unarmed is the strongest because it can't be disarmed, but isn't nearly as dangerous without, you guessed it, magic.  Finally, this mundane char will have to have penalties on other stats.  They could penalize magic and the other weapon stats, which gives them room to also have specs or medicine or knowledge skill... but this further exacerbates the over-reliance on always having their particular weapon available, and renders them less combat flexible.  Alternatively, they could have decent weapon skills all-around, making them a standard flexible fighter who can at least do something most of the time, but then they can't really do much outside of combat.

Dar?  He has -2 in edged, blunt, and ranged, but has never been penalized in any way for them.  So, he started with +2 in the stats he rolls 90% of the time, for pretty much whatever he wants to do, and his weakest potentially-useful stat is a -1, which can be corrected in a single mission.

...Also, again, up until he overshot on his magic rolls, Dar was physically a regular housecat.  Literally no combination of mundane stats could make a regular housecat capable of killing an entire squad of armed soldiers in melee, but a +2 in magic with a cheap "blur" item let him do so on his third mission.))

[Lenglon]

((... point taken.))

[Xantalos]

((Man, you almost make me feel bad for not being as efficient with my character.

Not Gak, I'm deliberately casting that aside to have uncomplicated fun with him, but Mr. Vulp. I probably could've made him way more deadly than just the regular stealth guy I made him. Ah well.))

[AbstractTraitorHero]

((God Once noir starts leveling up she's gonna be scary.))

[Ozarck]

((You guys think a rebalancing is in order?))

No mission today: it's been a long, wet, tiring week.

((Make that five.))

Rockcat! Emerge from the earth and immediately give Dar a high-five.

You emerge from the ground and spook Dar. Boo! Eek!

((I literally had meditation training from those clerics Ozark so I think it's not that hard to meditate. Just letting you know.))
Noir open's her eye's and breath's with a small smile on her face relaxed. Things felt clear. Things felt pristine. She got up brushed herself off and left the asylum silently. Quietly she went to look around. Maybe she could find Aylia. Or dar. Or....someone new. Yes.
That would be nice.
Explore.

You also gave me a one word action, so eh. It's on you. (6) you find yourself, mind still utterly blank, standing out in the desert, miles from the canyonh, hot, thirsty, and sandy.

((yes interested in a mission, may edit in an action later - am tired right now.))
EDIT:

I think... I think that's enough for now.
I need to take some time to relax, so that's what I'll do. I can organize my room, use a little ice magic to make it a comfortable temperature, and just rest.
So.... yeah. lets do that.

You make your little home just hte way it is most comfortable - at least, as comfortable as a cave in a desert can be, and restore yourself.

Well, since you seem open to giving information, what are "Lathalian powers"?  Just stuff related to the armor, moss, and metalcat form?  Or can Dar now use his nature magic on normal metals?

As for the moss... well, Cho'ja moved it down into the lowest part of the canyon, where there's a little bit of moisture, back when we first came back.  I had only expected the armor to take an action or two, and intended to go right to taking care of the moss afterward.  If you want to skip that, that's fine--the only thing I wanted mentioned is that Dar would like to place some moss in a small cave that he can hide and sleep inside, and perhaps use some magic to toughen the fungus if he's worried about its survival.

If we are skipping the moss, Dar will shift back to fleshcat form and go find Noir.

((@Egan
...Yeah, that would certainly be much more balanced.  It would require some reworking of stats, since the mental stats already control some of those magic traits, but even without any rework it would be much better than what we have.  Then again, Omega Legion is already pretty lethal--sure, magic might be the only way to be competitive in the game, but is that worse then there being no way to be competitive?))

You get some moss into a small cave (1) where it immediately begins to wither.

Depends on the mission, honestly. If it sounds like fun I'll join, but otherwise I'll continue to chill with overseer guy.

"Statement: That does sound like  a nice job, being the bureaucratic bogeyman.

Query: You are still an active duty operative? What is your specialisation?
Additional query: Did you go on any amusing or interesting missions lately?"

"I specialize in Chaos and Order magic. In particular, magic related to the mind. But no, I haven't been out much since the start of the Asylum project, and the two missions I did attend were so routine they were downright boring. Well, if anything involving bloodshed can be considered boring. Tell me: what about you? What have you considered to be the most interesting part of your missions?"

@Egan's reskilling idea: this would require me to actively keep track of mana pools. the magic stamina skill would translate to hard numbers.
I wold also rework the stats, including a stat for body size to govern melee effectiveness, since, as sy mentioned, I let Dar (and maybe others) get a little carried away in effectiveness, especially on that one mission.

I'd probably also include a stat to govern uniqueness of type of being, so that the player would have to carefully consider whether he or she really wanted that particular special snowflake as opposed to a more mundane, but effective character. That is, the more unique the character, the more stat points it would cost to unlock.
for example:
A -2 in this stat would allow nonmagical humans only
a -1 would allow nonmagical humanoids
a 0 would allow nonmagical animaltypes, constructs, undead, magical humans and humanoids.
a +1 would allow bodiless demons, magical undead, etc
a +2 would allow special snowflakes like Noir, Frederick, Gak, Carolyn, etc.

that would be more in the spirit of what I originally intended with Omega anyway, as I had intended for basic classes to be available early on, with more exotic things being unlocked as we went. But, I am laxy==zy about organizing and rulemaking, and I enjoy the challenge of making uniques balance effectively and entertainingly, so I haven't bothered.

Thoughts?

[Egan_BW]

Firstly, oh dear. Speshul snoflaeks are my bread and butter, so this might force me to adapt a bit.

Secondly, hell yeah. I like the idea of people (uh, me mostly) having to define what the hell their race is in practical terms. I had written up a whole bunch of rules and comparisons to average human ability for my sparrow-person, but then lost it all somehow... Probably part of why I abandoned that concept.
The kind of thing I mean by that is "rockcat move slower than a normal cat, because it is made of rock. Rockcat is likely to damage any bladed weapon swung against it."

Thirdly, what happens when you level up your "uniqueness" stat? If I get that up to +4 can I be God?

Fourthly, I should post a list of spells that rockcat can do, so that you won't balk when I pull something OP out during a mission.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Noir blink's and then quietly shakes their head it was time to get something to damn drink. The blankness had been kinda nice...relaxing she supposed. She needed to head back.
Fly back to the damn canyon. Get something to drink. Resolve to never bold text meditate again. Should be quick considering its a canyon and she's in the middle of the desert and not blind.

(( Welp time to just head back after finding nothing
 Uniqueness stat seems kinda meh to me. Plus it would most likely take away two of noirs points.))

[Lenglon]

I think I should try to fill one of my ability gaps if I can. If I could find a form capable of healing... can plantbeing or water nymph? probly not, I'll have to find such a form. If I can find a species of healers here around Omega...

Since number of forms is becoming an issue, I'm going to drop goldfish form if I do find an acquireable healer form, just to reduce clutter some, though I expect the healer form to take more space than goldfish does, I'm not at my limit yet anyway, so it should be fine.
@defineing race - did that already with Aylia, seems a non-issue to me.

@stat rebalance - fairly reasonable on paper, but how would they affect Aylia? It's not like she directly casts stuff. how would it affect passive magic users like her? I'm mostly concerned that she's gonna start getting weird issues with her abilities that never were concerns before.
I do know that if the "magic costs 3x as much to level as any other skill" change goes through, Aylia'll probably never be leveling it again without a defined reason to do so. its just not worth, even for a magic-heavy char. going from +0 to +1 costs as much as another skill's +2 to +3? and from +1 to +2 costs more than another skill's +3 to +4? at those costs, why bother? She'll probably focus unarmed and/or specializations. oh, and we'll never have a real medic. magic healers requiring 4 skills now instead of the already prohibitive 2? yeah, that'll never be a thing.
It's kinda funny actually, now that I have medics on the mind, but it seems like the mission to Lethal contained more medics than any other thus far... and I think the only surviving medic in the game is Noir. What's up with that? Is the "focus the medic" strategy of video games applying to the missions Omega gets sent on? or do we just not get many medics?))

[Egan_BW]

You don't have to level up all three magic stats at once, you know. Because right now magic is so much more versatile than any other stat, it's less increasing the cost and more bringing the cost in line with all the other skills. Making you decide what kind of caster you want to be. Because right now upgrading magic is a no-brainer if you're a magic user.

If you're a magic healer, you don't need to up four different stats, just medical and some other magic stat, while keeping the other two at +0 or even -1 (if you like fun, such as I do ). Precision is probably most important for a healer, while raw power is less so.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

((Ill admit I'm kinda dissapointed noir hasent gotten the vhsnce to kill anything with dark magic yet. Also slightly annoyed that noir somehow wandered miles into the desert without anyone even being able to stop her. Mainly because it was a 6 which means it would have been a overshot meaning she would have actually found something.))

You don't have to level up all three magic stats at once, you know. Because right now magic is so much more versatile than any other stat, it's less increasing the cost and more bringing the cost in line with all the other skills. Making you decide what kind of caster you want to be. Because right now upgrading magic is a no-brainer if you're a magic user.

If you're a magic healer, you don't need to up four different stats, just medical and some other magic stat, while keeping the other two at +0 or even -1 (if you like fun, such as I do ). Precision is probably most important for a healer, while raw power is less so.

((Trueish I'm planning to make noir not squishy doh since she already has three magic types I want her medical up and I want her strength and con up. Noir ain't meant to be a pure medic at all.

Also the rolls aren't that kind to noir lately and if my best thing my magic got nerfed. Probably ruin her playabilty.))

[Egan_BW]

Right, you're supposed to be a magical healer AND dps that can fly and has dragon scales and can get bailed out by her parents at any time. Not pure medic.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

((Actually I don't think noir can do much dmaage per second I mean I don't imagine and have never imagined her slinging her dark magic like hotcakes. Noir wanting to run away at times and hoping her parents can save her in a terrible situstion dosent mean it will happen. Even if it did it'd probably not be all sunshine for noir realistically.))