[idea] Battlemage class

Ideas for cool stuff in the future.
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tangar
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[idea] Battlemage class

Post by tangar »

Battlemage - class which could use elemental magic and enhancements, but at the same moment is very strong in melee (not so good as warrior, of course, but quite good). Its gameplay a bit close shaman - but he can't shape-shift; an idea also a bit close to rune-master, but battlemage can't use big distance attacks. Battlemage - close&close-mid-range class which focuses at enchancing his weapons with elemental magic.

- Battlemage has access to 5 basic elements: Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid and Earth (Shards). With them he could enchance his weapons or armour (not 1 piece of armour, but whole "set").

- Its possible to change active basic element "on fly" while in combat (like warrior could change battle stances). So most of the time Battlemage has to "stance dance" to be effective - changing enchantment at his weapon and at his armour

- new skill in "Magic" section" - Enhancement. While you lvl up this skill - its increasing your elemental bonus damage to melee attacks. At 25 it also grants double resistance to active element at armour enchancement, at 50 - immunity.

- special fighting technique (you could call it spell, but.. hm. need to think) - "Elemental rush" - AoE attack, you need to spend mana to use it. Its basically charged powerful short-term enchancement for a 1-2-3-4-5 (based at skill) turns. While its active, your melee attacks become AoE and increasing in size each turn to maximum size and then dissapears. With higher Enhancement skill AoE radius increased:

Image

Its just a draft of course :) Please discuss and suggest new ideas! ;)
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tangar
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Re: [idea] Battlemage class

Post by tangar »

Another, totally different approach - to make this class based at spells, not at simple enchancement of all melee attacks. Add new magic school "Enhancement" with several close-mid-range spells (may be also defencive ones, like "flame shield") which you could use in addition to common melee blows. Each spell could have special effect, so you would need to use them in different situation (or by turn in hard battle VS boss). For example, at first you attack with cold enhancement magic you slow enemy, then switch to fire to put AoE-fire damage, then earth to make him bleed (you applying such effects with basic attacks) & etc

Please suggest any ideas, even totally mad ones :) lets get more variants and try to choose best ideas to create really interesting and balanced class concept :)
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tangar
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Re: [idea] Battlemage class

Post by tangar »

Some people could ask - why go melee with a mage? Answer is short - cause its fun :)

Lets go with another approach again. Battlemage could be based at magic impact damage and magic auras.

Magic auras based at basical 5th elements. All auras gives resistances (from lvl 25 makes "double" when active; at 50 - immune) and also give effects:

Fire // Fire armour - have a chance to give monsters AoE dot (would work for a while even when aura not active)
Cold // Frost shiver - chance to slow (speed malus) closest enemies
Electricity // Thunderstorm - damaging nearby monster (not AoE!)
Acid // Acid vapor - AoE direct damage per turn (not dot!)
Earth (Shards) // Stone skin (gives physical protection)

Magic enhancements at weapon:

Fire // weapon become on fire! high direct damage.
Cold // chance to freeze your enemy
Electricity // chance to make "chain lightning" AoE on hit (attack electricity through closed staying enemies)
Acid // DoT damage (so its wise to hit all targets by turn if you fighting with several enemies to put AoE on each of them)
Earth (Shards) // chance to bleed and blind enemies with shards (they flow away from your weapon).

Of course you could have only one active aura and one weapon enhancement at the same moment. You could change them "on fly", like warrior changes his stances.

Auras effects weaker then enhancements. I suppose they could do 1/2 or 1/3 of "weapon" damage.

I think its good to make it possible to have different elements at aura and at weapon active. So, for example, it would be possible to have frost shiver active and have fire enhancement at weapon at the same moment.
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
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tangar
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Re: [idea] Battlemage class

Post by tangar »

Back to classics. Lets take a look at this class in traditinal way.

Battlemage. Could enhance his weapon with magic to make it more powerful. Could enhance only melee weapon. Could fight in melee, but also has some AoE-mid-range attacks.

Make sword fired with blazing flame. Make hammer to freeze your enemies even without touching them. Make your axe be so earth-sturdy, so its emits sharp stone spinters. Make your dagger infuse around air with acid vapors. Make your spear to create sparks in the air with a small lightning on peak. Its just to imagine how it looks...

Enchancment.. Its not auras. But it could be enhancement of armour. Yes. Armour. Fiery armour, freezing shiver... Hmm.. Enhancing armour couldn't be too elemental. But it could give resistances for sure. So if I enhance my chainmail, it could be protected from fire.. Or acid.. Or something even worse, like chaos or disenhancement?..

Hm.. Maybe pure armour enhancing is a bad idea. Aura's sounds more interesting. Maybe we could even just take auras which already existing in TomeNET and use them - electric, icy, frost, fiery aura..? It would be easier and wouldn't break game balance. BUT. Lets aura's of enhancer class would be stronger then common ones?

Good. So what we have there:
1) enhancing weapons with magic... this what about I'll think next time
2) using more powerful versions of aura's which already existing in TomeNET. Seems good idea.. But previous one was also interesting.
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tangar
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Re: [idea] Battlemage class

Post by tangar »

Continuing last message concept.. I think now I see how this class could look like:

Enhancer has intrinsic electric/icy/frost/fiery aura's. Actually they already exist in the game (you could find it on magic items), but enhancers' aura's 2x more powerful. Also power could depends on 'enhancing' skill.

Now weapons... We could think about such idea: when player ehnance his weapon, it doesn't give raw bonus damage with every blow, but gives certain chance (5-10%) to apply certain effect on target. For example, if we enhance weapon with:

Fire // Flame enhancement - have a chance to give monsters AoE dot (dots could be implemented as additional damage to several next blows)
Cold // Frost enhancement - chance to slow (speed malus) closest enemies (of course, slow is inertia, but for enhancement it looks solid at cold)
Electricity // Thunder enhancement- damaging random nearby monster (not AoE!)
Acid // Acid enhancement - AoE direct damage per turn (not dot!)
Earth (Shards) // Earth enhancement - chance to bleed and blind enemies with shards, which flow away from your weapon.

Additinal notes:
- You could have only one active intrinsic aura and one weapon enhancement at the same moment. You could change them "on fly", like warrior changes his stances.
- Its possible to have different elements at aura and at weapon active. So, for example, it would be possible to have frost aura active and have flame enhancement at weapon at the same moment.

Looks solid to me. I'm done for now :) Please discuss.
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tangar
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Re: [idea] Battlemage class

Post by tangar »

Atm I play Runemaster and it looks very satisfying in terms of "Battlemagic"... Actually I believe that Runemastery is one of the best concepts in terms of gameplay in RPG genre overall. Great concept!

But there are still some space for Battlemage :D Some things which could be presented with yet another approach ;)

Plot
Battlemages are istar's who like minimalizm and effeciveness _at all cost_. This brings them to quite crucial choises and limitations - which magic to learn and which to abandon. They use some 'pure' rune magic, but only the elements in it which are the most easy to control; battlemages do not work with such instabile substances as chaos or nether, for example. At the same time they are using their own 'spell scrolls' with brief and effective variants of Istar traditional spells.

Concept
1) Battlemage (BM) could be something in the middle between Istar and Runemaster. It's kinda 'simplified' Runemaster in terms of battle efficiency and tactics, but also BM do not have Istar's fundamentalism.

2) BM could look like runemasters at first sign; they are mainly using 'pure' elements to create their magic. But BM is more straight-forward class and they CAN NOT combine different runes to create new spells and they can't use complex and unstable elements. They just using runes of major elements:

Base (Fire-Acid-Cold-Lightning)
Poison
Shards
Water
Mana
Time


All this elements are skills on which BM could spend skillpoints.

At the same time, BM got their special magical skill
Battlemagic
BM could use not only runes, but also their special spell scrolls from 'Battlemage Tome' // special edition (tm). There could be some very useful, but simplified (with certain drawbacks) Istar-style spells:
- Disruption Shield (drain 1-2 (1d2) point of mana, instead 1 point for Istar)
- Wraithform (drawback compare to Istar - Wraithform spell drains mana while used; if mana is gone - you loose wraithform)
- Stone Wall (works like Wands of Wall creation; not so handy as Stone Prison)
- Prismatic shield - base+poison res; more effective then runie/istar resistance spells (at least no drawbacks there, it's battlemagic, dude!)

So... Battlemage using simplified rune magic + their own 'brand' magic.

3) Simplification to effictiveness also has drawbacks - BM can not enchant their items with Sigils (&Boons) and their Glyphs are limited to base damage runes (Fire-Acid-Cold-Lightning-Pois).

4) BM are even more reckless then Runemasters in the way of their operations with elements.. It gives them some advantages (EX: to be able to have Haste (Temporary speed) more then +10; up to +19, as Istari); but they still suffer even more severe backlash.

5) BM quite limited in using melee weapons; but they could do some tricks with 2-h Blunt type - staffs. But in most cases they do it mainly for punishing their apprentices :P Also there is a rumor that some BM could learn Martial Arts.. :)

Lets continue brainstorm!
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
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My chars @ angband.oook.cz
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