I've had this idea in my head for a while now, although not entirely original I decided to take on the lack of a bard skill tree. I've already begun working on implementation but as balance is important to me, some advice and feedback would be appreciated in every step of the process. The skill trees here are designed to support a mage type build without hindering you early game. Magic training is nice to have but I'm not compelled to level it early since the bonuses don't feel useful in terms of surviving the dungeon, and the anti-magic spell only starts to shine late game. 90% of the time as a spell caster, you get blood magic anyway. Art is not my strong suit, I may try to create my own icons but they'll probably be placeholders at best. And if anyone knows how to add a new weapon type/attack animation that'd be swell. Skill Tree - Merry Man (Rogue) "In all this celebration we forgot to acknowledge the merry woman." Fancy Dancin' +8 Sneakiness +4 Dodge "There's a song stuck in your head that just makes you want to dance all day!" Song of the People +2 Savvy "Play it again, Sam" Spell - Enemies in an AoE around you take Blasting and Existential damage as well as a chance to become confused/feared "It's Terrible!" (I imagine this skill will involve a vuvuzela.) Rowdy Fight Song +2 Savvy "Just a little allegro to get the blood boiling." Spell - Enemies in an AoE around you take Blasting damage and have a chance to be charmed for two turns or be confused. You also get a stack of Berserker Rage. "The music does nothing. The trick is to insult their mother and blame it on the other guy." Ode to a Love Song +2 Savvy "You know the rules. And so do I." Spell - Charms a target and has a chance to put enemies in an AoE around the target to sleep. "Most effective when played on a boombox outside her window." (I may or may not add debuffs to this skill.) Theme Song +2 Savvy "Gotta have a montage." Spell - Buffs for +1 all primary stats. -4 Sneakiness. Drains mana every 3 turns, can stack (5 times?) "Why fight? Because you can't sing or dance." Skill Tree - Conductor (Wizard) "Grab your baton and show the world what you are truly capable of... when supplied with hundreds of talented musicians." Baton Waving +1 Wandcraft +1 Lightning Damage +2 Magic Power (With Staves) Start the game with a Small Baton. "Electrify the crowd with your skill!" Orchestral Hit +1 Blasting Damage +1 Magic Power (With Staves) Spells have a chance to paralyze on hit and deal extra blasting damage. "Kick it up a notch!" Crescendo "Now we're getting to the good part." Spell - Triggers a timed buff which adds +30 Haywire chance, +2 Magic power, and +1 righteous damage every turn for three turns. Even though it costs mana I'm also giving it a 3 turn cooldown, for obvious reasons. "Louder and louder and LOUDER" Virtuoso "Your achievements have earned you worldwide renown." +2 Righteous Damage +1 Magic Power (With Staves) Small chance when hit to induce fear in an enemy. Finale "Aren't you glad you rigged the stage with fireworks?" Spell - Deals massive fire and blasting damage in a selected area, then debuffs you for 60 turns with -20 magic power and -6 nimbleness. The mana cost is ludicrous. 400 turn cooldown. "Thank you very much, have a good night." This tree might need filler skills just to make finale less accessible. Maybe it needs to be replaced altogether. Some ideas I had that I scrapped because I couldn't figure out how to make them work or I know aren't feasible: Fancy Dancin' - Allow the player to walk past hostile enemies as if they were charmed. Equippable wands. A way to increase wand damage that doesn't involve Magic Power Combo spells, spells that only work when certain debuffs have been applied.
Seeing as I'm pretty busy today, it'll be just a quick reply. If you want to know more, join the Mobile Infantry... I mean, just ask and someone (possibly me, possibly someone else) will answer. Adding new weapon animations is not possible as of now, as those animations are tied to the type of weapon that you are wielding. But adding new animations at all is possible, even if not the easiest thing there is (but it's still a fairly simple task). I reckon you might want to put your idea into a balancing brainstorm crossfire, as right now it seems kind of imbalanced (remember that the low-tier skills should be worth less than the high-tier ones, and that often abilities might be good enough to make any passive bonuses "too much". Simply said, it's overpowered in a way, and possibly underpowered in another (depending on the activated abilities). Passive bonuses are, even though the whole tree is rather short (which makes it undesirable under some circumstances), weirdly spaced out - blasting damage and righteous damage are the strongest damage types in the games, the second one possibly being on par with aethereal one, and here you give a total of 3 (4, including buffs) of them with no real downsides (other than not being able to take another skill tree) without them really being connected to the theme of that skill tree, but on the other hand, unless we count the buff (which I'm certain is pretty random with its stat bonuses, and the short duration would make it into something often more detrimental than beneficial), it doesn't give you much of anything else. I think you should start with asking yourself "what exactly do I want that skill tree to be" and then following on it with the answer. Because a skill tree that summons instruments as immobile allied monsters and adds one or two other abilities with that would likely be fun to play around with. You can do that; it would be quite funky and you'd have to make a small detour in the code, but it's nothing really difficult, and the results would probably be amusing (I have something similar waiting for the next patch, but it's a part of a bigger thing so I might as well try to help you with your own idea if you seek any advice on it). Changing scaling of invoked spells to something that isn't magic power. And you can also add a temporary (1-turn long, even) buff to magic power if you can't touch the spells themselves, but that isn't the cleanest solution. It's possible, and if you want a good start, I recommend taking a look at Fax' "Summoner".
