Essential DoD Core Skill Rebalance v.0.1.2

You can craft basic bolts. But to get cruelly barbed/ingeniously scythed, you need tinkering levels, and playing an archer with just basic bolts is...well, it's asking for it.

I'd ask if you could put a new craft skill in (fletching) and pull boltcrafting out of tinkering, but I know that's not really possible.

 

I'm not sure Magic Training needs the magic resist. The final already gives eight stat points, its what makes Magic Training really worthwhile, I'm not sure it needs a buff. The other levels definitely did, and I think adding Savvy is a good choice.

 

Then again, if you want to play an archer capable of supplying himself with every possible bolt type, then you play an archer with tinkering skill tree.
If I recall correctly, to get the ingeniously scythed bolts, you need 4 tinkering, and that means you still have to get tinkering (well, unless you happen to find the googles and use Megacrafts mod and had bad dreams because you lack 1 level for those).

Though I do agree with the idea of fletchery (not fletching, but the name is probably irrelevant), which could be something that would give a little of crossbow proficiency and a little crafting skill.

 

Hmm...I'm not terribly happy about the idea of giving Archery points in Tinkering. But I have an idea that might work to solve Archery's problems in a different and interesting way. I'll see if I can make it work.

[EDIT]Turns out that you can't, in fact, create a spell that summons a functional vending machine. Too bad; that would have been awesome. Back to the drawing board.[/EDIT]
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[EDIT AGAIN]Also, after playtesting the Luckier Find/Luckiest Find, I made a few small changes. BoMD was worth too much money to randomly show up, even twice per floor. Also, Coral Wand was overpowered showing up that regularly. The new lists have been edited in above for those who are interested. As soon as I get this Archery thing figured out I'll post an update. [/EDIT AGAIN]

 

I LIKE IT! when will you release it?

 

Good luck!

 

Four of each item from just level 5's "luckiest find" list, would be an extra 68,264 zorkmids per floor. Plus whatever else you're getting from the lower levels. That seems better than Burglary to me. What's more powerful, steel a random item from each shop and vending machine, or buy the best item of each floor from your bonus money?
EDIT: Immediately after posting, I realized I'd parse your post wrong. You meant 4 of each item from the first two lists, and 2 of each item from the third list. So that's 34,000 per floor. Still seems a bit generous, but not as busted.

Definitely need to take Dandy Black Boots off the list, as that's 21,200 of the value just by itself. My gut reaction is to pull anything with a value of 1,000 or more (Dandy Black Boots, Trapper's Toolbelt, Firey Wand, and, sadly, the various steel weapons).
EDIT: I'd still pull the Dandy Black Boots (5,300 zorkmids a pair) and Trapper's Belt (2,200 zorkmids plus a very useful item to carry and swap out whenever you need to get past a trap) off the list. They seem to good, for the reasons noted parenthetically.

I realize zorkmids aren't all that great, and somewhere around level 11 or 12 you stop caring about the money and just throw everything in the lutefisk cube (or set auto-loot modes all to off and leave it all where you find it). But I'd hate to see that dynamic get pushed down to level 6 or 7, which this could do.
EDIT: Probably floor 8, 9 or 10, given that the total value was less than I'd first interpreted it as. But it's still a bummer to have it happen even earlier than it already does.

Another thing that sets off my warning bells is the cheese and bread on the weakest list. 4 extra grilled cheese per floor? Add to that 4 cheesy omelets per floor via the second list. I'd have to see it in play to know if it's actually broken, but it certainly makes me apprehensive. Essentially, this makes Perception a healing tree.

Also, assuming 4 of each item per level (I've never really counted how many monsters there are per floor), that's an extra 120 things to pack into your inventory. Aren't most people already complaining about the inventory nightmare in the main game?
EDIT: 100 items not 120, since only 2 of each from the Luckiest list.

How about stocking the lists with mostly bolts and thrown items? Seems like archery and perception would have some synergy anyhow since sight equals range. Plus, since they stack, the inventory explosion won't be as frustrating.

 

Batman would highly approve. Having to sell off piles and piles of crummy maces.

 

Hey, how about instead of making throwing weapons a warrior skill, why not give it +1 burliness at every level so, at least in terms of attack power, it levels like one?

 

The changes to Magic Training make sense. I normally usually take Ley Lines over Magic Training, power normally isnt a problem, but reliability is sometimes. extra Savvy helps a good deal :>

I like how Shield Bearer would give an auto Defensive Bash, very nice! I think "wow" effects like these is what makes maxing the skill tree worthwhile, take for example, Tinkering's +3 to trap affinity at it's capstone, and Necronomiconomics rift... this is just another cool thing to add to that list.

The bonuses to Master of Arms are all useful, in one way or another. I don't really know if this makes it "on par" with the other skills, because I usually take Shield Bearer most of the time... maybe I should try using both at once?

as far as Throwing, I think it is a good idea to include some additional damage to make up for the fact you have less ammo to work with, even though it's a little hard to explain how. I'm talking about the buff from Magic Power. at max level, you get as much benefit from as you do from ... not saying it doesn't work, cause it does, but it's hard to wrap your head around from a logic perspective.

 

OK, so the new revision is up!

The solution to Archery, after attempting and failing MANY different ideas, was a crossbow-shot buff that gives a very slim chance of trickling mid-to-high level ammo in, and a very VERY slim chance of dropping a vending machine on your head (stunning you), then detonating it (not hurting you) and letting it's contents rain down around your feet.

Anyone who has any ideas for smoothing out the graphics/mechanics of said ability, feel free to poke at the XML and see if there's a way to do it more cleanly.

 

that sounds really unwieldy... surely, there must be a way to make archery useful without tinkering... is it possible to just make arrows cheaper to buy as you gain skill levels?

 

No, it isn't. And the main problem is that archery is supposed to be taken with tinkering for ammunition creating purposes, and there is no skill that gives you any bolts, even the weakest ones.
Thrown weapons were once the same, but can now be summoned if you take ninjutsu as one of your skills (all hail Essence for that).

 

Also, RBB, I have paid attention to your feedback about the Perception lists, and I'm not considering them a closed issue. I just wanted to get the update out to the people who were chomping at the bit for it. I'd like feedback from anyone who plays Perception about the loot tables. I know that currently, if you get to Perception level 5 before your first Monster Zoo, it can get a little crazy -- but things seem to even out around DL5 or so and get even downright annoying around DL 8. I'm interested in how it affects other people's play, though. Anyone?

 

By the way, has anyone tried using Fungal Arts with this mod? The mushroom generating skill doesn't actually work, and I had to pretty much change it to targetcorpse instead of adjacentcorpse for it to work.

 

Hrm? I thought I had changed that back. I really wanted it to be adjacent corpses only, but it never did work. I'll reupload the fixed version right now.

[EDIT]Done. Anyone not savvy enough to make the change Kaja suggested on their own should redownload the zip. [/EDIT]

 

Just tried playing with the new archery mod. It's fun, but right now I think it might be giving too many bolts, to the point where Tinkering feels useless (though still nice for handling traps and making crossbows). It might be necessary to tone down the frequency just a little, and cut down on the variety of granted bolts. Every distinct type of bolt is another slot eaten up. Inventory was already a little tight with Fungal Arts and Tinkering, this just compounds it.

You know, I might just start a new playthrough without Fungal Arts. I'll test how this change works with a new character instead of an established one. I think it does need testing. Besides, I missed out on the fun Megacraft+CK recipes.

 

I went through floor one with perception, archery, viking wizardry, artful dodge, burglary, throwing, and assasination. this is how many bolts I gained, without opening any bolt vendors, or buying any equipment:

http://postimage.org/image/gse9fv5kx/full/

I like the mechanic, but I think getting all that right away is a little too powerful, especially considering that throwing weapons just gets softballs. the stun hasn't screwed me over yet, but I have a feeling it will, I got hit once already because of it.'

Edit: I really think just keeping ammo recovery rate up is the better route, either that or make the council watching you the capstone skill... or maybe increasing the drops over time like perception works... I don't know really.

 

Those bolts can pretty much one-shot floor 1 enemies and make short work of floor 2 enemies, by the way. Mind, once my more melee characters got going, they could do pretty much the same thing. But those bolts still feel too strong.

In the end, I think this change might be too radical for a core rebalance mod. It might be better off split into a separate skillset and more finely tweaked, so for example at level 1 you get a basic skill that lets you activate a basic buff that gives you a chance of basic arrows, and at level 4 or 5 you can choose to instead activate a buff that gives you the higher end stuff. And definitely fewer bolt types per buff!

Oh, and some other stuff to make it a more interesting skillset, though it doesn't necessarily need that much. Just look at Blood Magic and the Ley Lines skill.