Come Bitch About Skills! [Skills Rebalance Brainstorming]

Here is the updated version. J-Factor stopped updating it a while back. This should have everything at 1.1.2 level and most major mods.
http://dredmor.stosic.org/

*Edit* Nope. The mods are broke in this one. But it is still the most up to date.
Here is the older one with most major mods working.
http://j-factor.com/dredmorpedia/

 

Note for essence: Solar Inscription is broken as discussed.

 

Yeah. It's fixed locally; I'll upload a new version today or tomorrow assuming time allows.

 

I'll just leave this here for now...

Code:

<spell name="Swarmed" type="template" templateID="101">
<effect type="summonhostile" percent="10"/>
<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/smokepuffbig/smokepuffbig" frames="6" sfx="100 ton weight is dropped on somebody" centerEffect="1"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Drain Mana" type="self">
<effect type="draincastermana" amount="51"/>
<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/smokepuffbig/smokepuffbig" frames="6" sfx="dizzy_noises" centerEffect="1"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="None So Blind" type="self">
<buff usetimer="1" time="30" bad="1" icon="achievements/not_the_bees0.png" smallicon="skills/placeholder32.png">
<secondaryBuff id="18" amount="-4"/>
<secondaryBuff id="17" amount="-6"/>
<boozeBuff percentage="100" name="None So Blind"/>
<description text="You can't see! You can't see! Why not? You got your eyes shut...for you...by a powerful extraplanar being...that apparently doesn't appreciate booze."/>
</buff>
<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/smokepuffbig/smokepuffbig" frames="6" sfx="player's head explodes via poison" centerEffect="1"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Lesser Blink Curse" type="self">
<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/smokepuffbig/smokepuffbig" frames="6" sfx="alchemical_transmutation" centerEffect="1"/>
<buff usetimer="1" time="16" icon="achievements/double_rainbow0.png" smallicon="skills/placeholder32.png">
<description text="The Elder Beings have seen your dinking around with the ebb and flow of magic...and raised you some dinking around with the ebb and flow of SPACE ITSELF!"/>
</buff>
<effect type="trigger" amount="1" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="2" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="3" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="4" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="5" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="6" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="7" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="8" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="9" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="10" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="11" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="12" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="13" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="14" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="15" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
<effect type="trigger" amount="16" percent="15" spell="Froda's Jump Discontinuity"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Confusion Effect" type="self">
<effect type="paralysis" turns="2"/>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Confusion" type="self">
<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/smokepuffbig/smokepuffbig" frames="6" sfx="nonchalant whistling" centerEffect="1"/>
<buff usetimer="0" brittle="7" icon="achievements/the_truth_is_way_out_there.png" smallicon="skills/placeholder32.png">
<primarybuff id="1" amount="-12"/>
<primarybuff id="5" amount="-12"/>
<targetHitEffectBuff percentage="50" spell="Confusion Effect"/>
<description text="You're confused! It's easy when an Elder Being is chewing on your thinkmeats. Getting beaten up (down?) a bit will help. In the meantime, trying to take violent actions often results in staring uselessly into space."/>
</buff>
</spell>
 
<spell name="AUEA" type="self"/>
<effect type="triggerfromlist">
<option name="Swarmed"/>
<option name="Drain Mana"/>
<option name="None So Blind"/>
<option name="Lesser Blink Curse"/>
<option name="Confusion"/>
<option name="Swarmed"/>
<option name="Drain Mana"/>
<option name="None So Blind"/>
<option name="Lesser Blink Curse"/>
<option name="Confusion"/>
<option name="Swarmed"/>
<option name="Drain Mana"/>
<option name="None So Blind"/>
<option name="Lesser Blink Curse"/>
<option name="Confusion"/>
<option name="Swarmed"/>
<option name="Drain Mana"/>
<option name="None So Blind"/>
<option name="Lesser Blink Curse"/>
<option name="Confusion"/>
<option name="Tentacular Infestation Bolt"/>
</effect>
</spell>
 
<spell name="Attracted Unwanted Extraplanar Attention" type="self">
<anim sprite="sprites/sfx/smokepuffbig/smokepuffbig" frames="6" sfx="emo_debuff" centerEffect="1"/>
<buff usetimer="1" time="2" icon="achievements/this_root_shall_suffer0.png" smallicon="skills/placeholder32.png"/>
<description text="You've done it now. Gone and messed with the weig, phlogiston, and aether too much. I don't know what's about to happen to you, but it won't be pretty..."/>
</buff>
    <effect type="trigger" amount="2" requirebuffonnottrigger="1" requirebuffonnottriggername="The Ballmer Peak" spell="AUEA"/>
</spell>

 

What is it?

 

It's the punishment you risk for abusing easy mana-gain spells in the ESCRII. Leyline Siphoning, Extraplanar Concentration, and a few others all carry a small (4-8% chance) of triggering Attracted Unwanted Extraplanar Attention. If you really want to avoid the chance of badness, all you have to do is drink until you're at the Ballmer Peak; in that state, the AUEA won't trigger and you'll be safe. The punishments aren't lethal, but they're designed to specifically make life as a mage hard by doing things like reducing sight range (no AoEs), surrounding you with random level-appropriate bad guys, draining your mana pool, and so on.

 

So for now there are not plans to make them different?
Cool workaround anyway, and a cool way to implement Balmer Peak into mages lives nowaday.

 

The magical support skills will be different, yes, but the only change I'm planning on making to the levels people actually take and use (i.e. the easy-mana levels) are the above.

For the record:

Spoiler: Current ESCR Changelist

FIGHTER

SHIELD BEARER [CHANGE]
Shield Bearerer's Block and Piercing Resist lowered.
Shield Bearer given 3 points of each basic damage type.

DUAL WIELD [NERF]
-20 EDR given on 1st level.
Each successive level gives +5 EDR (net total of +0 over the entire tree.)



WIZARD

BLOOD MAGIC [CHANGE]
Vital Siphon now gives at least 1 Mana every time it goes off.
Steal Spirit eliminated; replaced with Powered by Pain (27% chance to restore 1 mana when hit.)
Steal Soul eliminated; replaced with Mass Exanguination (template 100 destroy corpses; gain 2-6 mana per corpse; 4% chance to Attract Unwanted Extraplanar Attention.)

LEY LINE WALKING [CHANGE]
Leyline Siphoning downtime increased to 42. Added a 6% chance to Attract Unwanted Extraplanar Attention.
Channeler eliminated; replaced with Discover Ley Nexus (+5 Mana Regen and +10 Magic Resistance spellmine, each turn has a 1% chance to Attract Unwanted Extraplanar Attention.)

MAGIC TRAINING [CHANGE]
Certified Mage changed to You, D.M.A.: +4 Savvy, +1 Sagacity.
Wizarding Associate changed to Certamen Certified; gives 2 Savvy, 2 Sagacity, and ability to cast Certamen Circle (breakonmove, -100 dodge/counter, -10 EDR/crit, +50 Haywire/MRes/Mref, +8 Magic Regen.)
Extraplanar Concenration given an 8% chance to Attract Unwanted Extraplanar Attention.
Master of Magic changed to The Master Spell; gives 5 Sagacity, 5 Savvy, and a buff granting +100 Haywire and +10 Magic Power. Buff is removed on cast.

VIKING WIZARDRY [CHANGE]
Hand of Belimawr swapped with Unholy Warcry.
Unholy Warcry's Blasting damage given scaling (.18 * Magic Power)
Unholy Warcry's debuff increased to -20 Nimbleness, -5 Armor, -5 Melee Power.
Unholy Warcry's fear effect removed entirely.


VAMPIRISM [BUFF]
Psychic Vampire's second 'gain mana' trigger was missing an amount="1". I added that back in.
Transylvation now summons Blink Batty companions rather than regular Batties, and does so 3x more often (66% instead of 22%).

FLESHSMITHING [BUFF]
Meatshield now gives you a 17% chance to proc Fleshbore on enemies that hit you in combat.

ASTROLOGY [BUFF]
Solar Inscription is now a permanent mine (i.e. it will go off as many times as stepped on until it expires -- which is in 21 turns.)
Syzygy, when cast, heals you for 5+(2* Sight Radius) HP.
Celestial Aegis no longer has any mana upkeep. (Compare to Mark of the Black Eyeliner, which does more stuff for less cost but has an upkeep -- I think this is good.)
Celestial Aegis' brittle upped to 15.




ROGUE

ASSASSINATION [CHANGE]
Slim Customer now gives a 12% on-Kill buff that grants +20 Sneakiness until hit.
Venomous Infusion is no longer an active skill; it now happens automatically 17% of the time when you get attacked in combat. It has been renamed Venomous Vengeance.
Et Tu now scales to Nimbleness.

FUNGAL ARTS [BUFF]
The Toxic Spore Cloud created by Fungal Arts' Puffball is now a permanent mine (meaning it will continue to trigger each time a creature steps on a square within it's radius.) It also now deals 3+(.1 * Savvy) damage rather than a flat 3, and doesn't affect the caster.
MiniToxicSporeCloud (fungal arts' level 4 proc) now deals 2+(.25*Savvy) damage (used to be a flat 2), is a permanent (until expired) mine, and doesn't affect the caster.
Fungal Arts level 3 given 'Symbiotic Toadstools', a buff for pets only (target=adjacent).
Mushroom Transmutation moved to Fungal Arts level 4.
The final level of Fungal Arts can now correctly drop any kind of mushroom on a kill, and does so 8% of the time (used to be two separate 5% chances, so it's about the same)

DODGE [BUFF]
Transdimensional Dodging's downtime increased to 18, and it now triggers Froda's Jump Discontinuity when it's activated, so you can get out of closed rooms you might have gotten stuck in.
Supremely Sly Side-Stepper now adds an additional (stacking) 30% chance to trigger Adventurer Aikido, because capstone (total rough effective percentage: 51%.)

PERCEPTION [BUFF]
Third Sight adds 1 damage that only affects walls.
Third Sight now gives a 1-turn buff that allows a 100% proc of Luckiest Find on-kill.
Eye Lasers now also trigger On Fire on the target.
Eye Lasers now scale 3x Sight on Blasting Damage, 2x TrapSight on Conflagratory damage, and .2x EDR on Aethereal Damage.

ARCHEOLOGY [NERF]
It Belongs in a Museum swapped with Remember Your Charlemagne.

GENERAL [FIX]
All effects that used 'burn="1"' now trigger On Fire instead. (Ingition Bolt and a bunch of Voltaic Mine effects, really. Promethean had already been fixed by the GLGuys.)



EXPANSION I:

BIG GAME HUNTER [BUFF and FIX]
'Lured' now inflicts a -15 penalty to Block, Dodge, and Counter in addition to it's other effects.
BGH level 4 had a completely nonfunctional special attack ('Hunter's Strike') that was triggered on kill (meaning it tried to damage the creature that you had just killed.) I switched it from on-kill to on-hit, on-throw, and on-crossbow, and moved it to level 2. It deals 3+ (1/3 Sneakiness) Percing damage to Animals only on 50% of melee hits.
Hunter's Strike had also apparently replaced BGH4's old 'more Grisly Trophies' onKill effect, which is specifically mentioned in the flavor text, so I added it back in.
Also, since the flavor text of BGH4 says "we'll give it blood so we can kill it", I took the taxa restrictions off of the Butcher and Grisly Trophies effects that BGH4 gives, and then cut the %-to-proc by half considering they'll go off on everything you touch.

DEMONOLOGIST [BUFF]
Celestial Circle now inflicts -40 Nimbleness instead of -12.
Abyssal Fire now lasts forever. On the downside, it now inflicts -4 Righteous, Hyperborean, and Existential Damage Resist on you, so it's not a brainless, leave-it-on-all-the-time thing. It's still removable. Also, it had two seperate on-hit procs which we know doesn't work, so I switched it to a single trigger that uses choosefromlist to pick one of the two relevant effects.
Infernal Contract now has percentage chances to inflict it's various downsides, with the more nasty ones being less likely. (They used to be all 100%, so it's more of a gamble thing now.)
Demonic Form now properly has a downtime (30, with a 13-turn duration, so you can spend just under half your time as a Demon), and to make up for it, gives a +3 Conflagratory damage bonus while in Demon Form. Also, you still have access to all Demonology skills when in Demon form.
Flames of the Heckforge swapped with You Are The Demons, so it's the final level and you can have all your demony goodness without having to take Heckforge if you don't want it.

WEREDIGGLE [FIX]
Diggle Plague is now a proc that goes off on 17% of melee hits.
Diggle Plague's DoT reactivated (it was borked because it was inside the buff tags, guys.)

EMOMANCY [BUFF]
Sigil of Whatever's damage scaling is doubled (to .2*magic power), and it's chance to paralyze is doubled (to 50%).
Depressing Elemental Blast restored to it's ECSR1 status: it DoTs each enemy with 2+(.2*Magic Power) Existential damage and a Pacify each turn for 12 turns.



EXPANSION II:

WARLOCKERY [FIX]
Puissant Veil restored to it's intended status (blockBuff that procs a normal-sized Puissant Touch)
Chronomantic Twist fixed.
Manacalypse scaling brought in more proper line with the capstone buff-ending mana-eating beast that it truly is.

ROGUE SCIENTIST [FIX/BUFF]
Barometric Pulse Devices' "Vent Steam" mistakenly had 'usetimer="2", time="1"' rather than the opposite which is ovbiously what Ruigi intended.
Thaumomechanical Rebreather's mana upkeep moved to 1/7 turns.
Aetheric Death Ray's scaling to Wandcraft upped to 7.
Aetheric Death Ray now correctly triggers On Fire rather than using the depreciated burn="1".

PRACTICAL GEOLOGY [very minor BUFF]
Basalt Skin's Timer and Brittle both increased to 16.



EXPANSON III:

EGYPTIAN MAGIC [NERF]
Sandstorm now has a 50% chance of removing a random glyph when cast. Can randomly select glyphs you don't actually have, so unless you're going balls-out, actual chance of removal is much lower than 50%.
Eye of Ra's various Blasts now have a 1% chance of removing a random glyph when activated. See previous note.

COMMUNISM [BUFF]
Warming Vodka added to the list of Random Commie Effects. There were too few positive effects on that list.
Vanguard Party now only triggers debuffs on 1% of hits and being-hits. Also, non-melee-power bonuses from Vanguard Party are doubled.
Iron Curtain Hyperborean Resistance increased to 8. (No more fur hats, dammit!)
The Bomb now gives you a spell that creates a The Bomb and gives you a 999-turn unremovable debuff that prevents the bomb-creating ability from triggering as long as you have it.

TOURIST [BUFF]
Handle Foreign Currencies upped to 125% normal Zorkmid gain.

 

Essence for President/Emperor/All-Powerful-XML-Diety!

*Edit* Do not let my fondness for what little I understand of Essence post make you think I read every word. I only had to skim a small part to see that "Awesome" had landed. And I have read it all now. Twice. It all sounds like I expected.

 

It's actually fairly easy to read his post. Just start from the bottom-most spell and move upwards.

 

You sir, just got Ninja'ed.

 

Considering I'm half asleep and would fail a spot check even on a critical success, that's hardly surprising. But revel in your victory.

 

So, anyone have any complaints about YHTNTEP skills other than Aetheric Death Ray (which I'm working on right now?)

 

Damage from shields?

I saw what you did here. Maybe some bedtime?

Isn't 42 a little too much?

Aww, why this? Too powerful? (Yes I've read the whining thread time ago, but still it's so flavorwise!)

I think this need some more work. Since at character level 6-7 the damage quickly take down your own summoned pet. Yes, the shroom too.

Not by being hit too? After all it's still a contact with the plague spreader itself.

But, anyway. Great thinking here, I really love the changes, I cannot wait for it (I should, since the exams and stuff, but stilll...)!

 

Sorry -- 3 points of each basic damage resistance type. My bad.

Think so? it was kind of arbitrary, but wasn't it originally at 36? It's only 6 more turns...

Yep.

Hence why Symbotic Toadstool adds huge to your pet.

Honestly, It's just a placeholder right now until the Terror of the Night thread gets concluded, at which point I hope to take the results and wrap them into the ESCRII.

 

Yeah, I arbitrary forgot the cooldown. I don't know why, but I remembered less turns for . Anyway, the cooldown is 30. And yeah, 42 it's good. My bad. *go to sleep*

Yeah, I figured. But you can buff the pets after the summon, while the cloud pops up as soon as the summon makes its entrance. Mmmmh...

Oh .
But I'm the only one talking there right now I thought it was mass-abandoned. I was also starting with the code, until the exam popped out.

 

yeah, it's all good. Take your time, do it right, and when it's all done I'll add it (and in all likelihood add you to the Badass List for all the work you've put into it. )

 

Oh god the pressure. I can sense it.
Jk I'll do my best, and if that will not be enough, I'll try do my bestest best.
You know, Christmas Holidays are here just for something like that.

 

Update: make the summon spells from Fungal Arts (slime and shroom) buff the summoned monster with something useless alone like In Spores we Thrust, or something like that.
Then make the spellmine clouds of spores (puffmab/summon 3x3 and character-proc 1x1) call for a spell which need In Spores we Thrust to take effect. And then give a heal dot (like the damage from the cloud) to mantain effective the pets caught into the cloud, while the spell dealing damage will take no effect to them. And maybe some secondary stat like dodge or dunno, maybe it's an overkill.
And maybe the spell should search for Symbiontic Toadstool too, so buffing other pets from other skill trees can make puffballs a kind of heal and buff only for pets, without killing them at sight. So the Fungal Arts gain a little more pet oriented style, without changing too much. And we can have a fairy decent aoe from a rogue skill, which not-rogue scientists lack for.

 

Clockwork Reflexes and Thaumomechnical Rebreather.

Rogue Scientist is all about fighting monsters at range. It has 2 long range attacks with knockback, one long range attack that damages you if you use it too close to yourself, and one medium range attack that punishes enemies for trying to get close to you with pools of acid that damage them. It gives you no defenses what so ever, and does everything it can to discourage you from wading into battle and getting yourself surrounded by enemies. A skill that's only useful if you counterattack while surrounded by more than one enemy doesn't really work for it.

And 2 each of 4 elemental defenses really isn't worth 1 mana every 3 turns. Nor is the Thaumomechnical Rebreather helmet very good either, since it reduces your sight.