I've been trying to make a character who doesn't use melee weapons, doesn't use nuking spells, and doesn't even fire bolts. I want this character to STRICTLY use Rogue Scientist type tricks--a "caster" who's not a wizard. It's impossible, actually. Dagger is as close as it gets. I want to make a skill that is the ass-kicking engine for a build that has NO other ass-kicking options at all. This skill is the ONLY thing you have that is actually focused on dealing damage. This seems like it doesn't demand any terribly complicated mod trickery, so if I were to learn to mod this seems like a suitable first project. Questions: What limitations should this tree have in order to not be totally overpowered? This is a character that is going to have a ton of utility, escapes, and dodge chance from their other skills, and I'm making it so that building those things up also helps you with your damage trick. This skill has to depend heavily upon you building and playing the way it demands or else it'll just be a big list of damage tricks that can be stacked on another build. Rogue Scientist weaponizes Alchemy; what should this skill weaponize? Dodge, perhaps? Sneakiness? And is there any way I could discourage crossbow use while on this build? Random-ass ideas: Spoiler: random ideas The skill's main trick could be an extreme form of Aikido for Adventurers. Whereas Aikido stuns the enemy, this skill might deal damage to all adjacent enemies, thus making it so that standing in the middle of a horde with 80+ dodge chance would give you a similar effect to turning Swashbuckling on in the same situation. The skill might instead have a spammable nuke that stackably reduces your melee defenses for a significant amount of time (12+ turns). You can thus use this skill to demolish enemies easily, but only if the situation is perfect. Or maybe the skill's main damage trick, whatever it is, could deal extra damage when your HP/max HP is LOWER. So it would be a Radiant Wizard, sort of, except it would completely lack trickery like the Radiant's big AoE stun, on the theory that your other skill trees are supposed to do that for you. As a side effect, this tree would then be hilarious if taken on a Radiant Wizard. To extend that idea, maybe I'd make this skill a rogue equivalent of Radiant Wizard. Radiant eventually reduces your melee defenses to almost nothing, making it so that you really can't be fighting anything in melee. This tree would reduce your magic power and your melee offense to almost nothing. I suppose it would also lower block, HP, and armor while buffing dodge and counter--forcing you to live dangerously and rely on the defenses that you're inherently good at. Maybe there's room for several of these ideas on the same tree?
