Skill trees that fit the game nicely~

I was hit by inspiration in my last Dredmor play through.. and I have realized why some of my suggestions haven't gotten too much support. They simply do not fit the game's style as well as I would have hoped! The skill trees below fit the game's style nicely, they are both weird, have unique mechanics not used too much and have alot of personality..

Titles will be colored red to make them easier to pick which you want to find, and these have unique circus inspiration.

Summary below, so you can skip most of the text if you just want the general idea for each skill tree.

"Fire" Breather: Despite his/ her name, he/ she does not, in-fact, Breathe fire at all, but is known to have very bad breath. His/ her attacks will either be cooldown based (as described in a previous thread), based.. or more interestingly "alcohol" based (uses alcohol to cast/ Breathe)

The First Breathe attack is a 'push' attack, that does light damage but pushes back all monsters and items one or two squares (will usually not effect traps, as I feel its op, and it would be strange if you could move gears with a Breathe..). It scales with alcohol (and/ or, would prefer alcohol scaling though), but does not need it, or any to use; it only has a cooldown. All of his/ her advanced Breathe attacks will have elemental damage, that can be further fueled by alcohol, since alchemists can easily end up making far too much. Alcohol would either replace the cool down, or ; entirely or greatly reduce it, depending on which the devs decide is more appropriate, alcohol would add more damage/ effects as well. These could scale with , or a rogue stat, or both (would prefer the rogue stat my self). There could also be a "Breathe craft" stat, that would allow Breathers to make special chemicals, that can be drank; and then lit and Breathed out (similar to Fire Breathers 'drinking' alcohol IRL to Breathe fire) for special effects.

Breathe attacks may include, but are not limited too: Blizzard Breathe , Breathe of Belief , Nikola's (Tesla's first name) Breathe , Sword Breathe (spits/ Breathes out sword(s), may require a sword to use, and would scale with the sword used), Diggle Breathe (has poison damage, because everyone knows Diggles have bad breath), Divine Breathe (to heal your self/ allies, would do double damage (or at least more than other Breathe attacks), versus the undead) along with other elemental Breathes, and a Chaos Breathe that does multiple random elements and effects.

Spell-Sword: They are able to properly use to enhance their melee damage.. assuming that some skills and abilities will stop scaling with when it doesn't make sense. This could come at the cost of standard magic spells doing less damage, costing more , and perhaps having less effects.. since this tree breaks the tradition that wizards can not use swords, even if they are spells as well.

They mainly use two types of skills (along with passives): Buffs that would scale directly with magic power; and an unusual magic/ melee power attacks that would scale with both , and a warrior stat (and weapon damage). These could be similar to the existing weapon power attacks, and would cost , with a cooldown. This class would also get a passive that adds damage (that scales with ) to all melee damage effects within reason; such as the Throwing Buffalo techique, or the Assassin skills that have a % chance to activate, with a % to activate for regular attacks. These buffs/ abilities could either have very high cost or the cost should be based on maximum , Otherwise I feal that these could easily be overpowered, when combined with strong spell casting, even if those spells were weakened. Alternatively.. normal spell casting could be restricted entirely I guess.

Spell-Swords could get unique Spell-Sword craft skills to make up for the fact that he/ she is giving up spell casting as well. This would enchant equipment (with a lower curse rate than Krong), and even wands. These effects could be anything that can be reasonably enchanted through other means, but would usually be weaker than enchantments found naturally, buffed by Krong or earned through quests.. and could even anger Krong (so that he will always curse your manually enchanted gear). Krong could also send monsters to attack you, and would summon monsters you when you approached an anvil of Krong (optional), as well as increasing the curse chance, and cursing you if you successfully enchant something (more interesting). Spell-Swords could get a skill that removes curses at a huge cost (maybe a permanent curse, that can only be removed by something extremely rare/ hard to get/ maybe a fairy/ fairy-well?) to help balance this (also optional).

Diggle Tamer: Would be able to summon several unique Diggle summons that scale with his/ her stats, along with the ability to tame nearby Diggles (and similar enemies like demons?), as well as buff allies, but not his/ her self. Diggle Tamers would also be able to break the maximum control/ summon limit (or at least increase it), and could also get a damage boost agianst tame-able creatures..And creatures that can't be tamed but are similar to them, such as any animal or demon. He/ she would do far less damage to anything else though, making him/ her rely on his/ her summons more.

Summonable Diggles could include, but are not limited to: Snow Diggle, Heck Diggle (demon), Diggle Assassins, Circus Diggles with high Archery/ Throwing/ Juggling/ or Breathing skill (would be random), Cursed Diggle (a buffed up sick Diggle, that can curse enemies, and you), and a mass Diggle summon that would summon several random tame-able creatures, but mostly random Diggles. Summons could take your strength (debuffs you) to summon, stronger summons could take more.

This could also add a summon skill, that would increase the summoning/ control limit; so that summoning based trees are viable to use at end game.

The Juggling skill tree directly below is a optional read, and most of the ideas in it are optional.. it was re-written since I felt it was cluttered and a bad example of how I was thinking the class should actually work. The re-written 'correct' post is in a post below this one. The ideas below in the outdated Juggler explanation are still interesting, although a bit cluttered. Some of the ideas are very nice, and should be considered if the tree is added to the core game or a mod.

Jugglers: They are a bit odd.. since they're main purpose is Throwing, and there is already a Throwing tree, but they do it a bit differently.. They can Throw anything, and anything thrown would either stack with Throwing skill, weapon damage, Spell damage, or anything else that would apply to the thrown item, like Smithing, Alchemy or Wand skill; and also would get its own unique boosts (usually only one or two would apply to each item).. Things that only a Juggler would throw would get better bonus's from Juggling (such as portastills, grills, weapons, potions, food (for food allergies) and other ridiculous items), than most throwable items.

Jugglers would also be able to throw multiple small (or regular throwable weapons) at a time, and could even throw a crossbow that is shooting multiple bolts in the air (would stack with Archery skill). Jugglers would get random bonus's to Thrown weapons.. which can also do alot more, or alot less damage, and buff/ curse the enemies, or have other non desirable effects (random effects would appear more at higher levels of juggling).

Juggling would also have a separate unique stat, that would help throw bigger objects, or multiples of smaller objects. They would also get a limited melee boost, in that he/ she can Juggle in melee combat, thus could tri, quad (or more) wield (along with the equipped weapons, would not get enchantment bonus's from juggled weapons/ crossbows).. with unique limitations, like being able to drop/ break weapons. Juggling could also potentially help spell casting, since at higher levels, Jugglers can Juggle words, hand movements, and incantations; so multiple spells could be cast at once (with the appropriate cost)! Jugglers would also get unique crafting items, and would be able craft items, with no purpose, other than to be thrown; would include, but is not limited to: pianos, anvils, yarn (with distraction effects), caltrops, and etcetera.

Forgot to mention shield Juggling.. which would add a very high (at least 30) , and (at least 10) for 3-5 hits for 10 turns (scales with the shields used, and the Shield Bearer tree; it would be at least half as effective with low quality shields, and no Shield Bearing skill.) Anyone blocked by this ability would have a chance to be stunned, this would also have a very long cooldown. He/she has a chance drops the shields which have a high chance to break when dropped. This ability can be manually ended, but since shields are not balanced (literally balanced, not related to game balance) all the shields would fall. The specific bonus this ability gets, would be based on the quality of the shields, and the number of shields Juggled; since using this ability is risky.. and it can be easy to run out of shields.

Hope these are a bit better than the last ones.. I personally really like them, and think they would be fun to use!

Edits are blue as usual

 

Summary added to clarify my ideas, and why each does what it does.

The "Fire" Breather makes a few new uses for alcohol, and could give an alternative way to try a high power 'casting' build, without the ; it should also work well with rogue type builds, the high cooldowns and the limitations on your alcohol supply should prevent it from being overpowered easily, but not useless if you happen to run out.

The Spell-Sword was thought up as another way to effectively make a magic/ melee hybrid character, without losing too much melee effectiveness with the loss of stats due to magic specialization. It reduces the effectiveness of most spells, since it is a melee focused tree; and is usually for ranged damage.. it would be unreasonable to add a tree that buffed melee to this extent, and worked well with casters.

The Diggle Tamer is a pure summon tree, since there currently is only a few summons in most trees. These summons may be worse than other tree's summons, but it has a natural summon cap increase in the tree and multiple elemental summons; to make up for the fact that they are potentially not as good you can still use them to counter enemies potential weakness. As a balance factor, each active summon should reduce your stats slightly, with better summons taking more.

The Juggler is probably the best idea of the bunch.. or at least the most interesting. He/ she can use anything as a weapon, and should avoid the potential ammo issues of the Throwing tree. It may be overpowered to combine good melee effects with a ranged tech tree, though those are meant as a way to use melee weapons as 'ammo' for a temporary melee boost. This tree is mainly a burst damage tree, as it requires throwing/ using multiples/ increasing cost of most objects/ attacks to get full use out of it.

 

Honestly, after re-reading what I wrote, I realized that I gave alot of bad examples for the Juggling tree.. most of the skills and effects listed are quite optional. This post will have a better explanation, and anything in this will be the 'core' attributes of the skill tree. The ideas in the opening are interesting as well, and should be considered when thinking about the tree if you have the extra time to read it.

I am giving this its own post, since I feel it changes the skill tree enough to be significantly different.. although this will probably be my last post/ edit to the thread, unless I get more replies, since I don't like bumps/ necroing.

This is written in a format different from the rest of the skill trees, and applies more to what individual skill levels will do, rather than an just overview of the skill tree, to insure that I don't end up messing this up again ^^

Anyway: Jugglers are quite skilled at multi-talking, and can even bend reality to accomplish their unique feats of skill.

Novice Jugglers can only Juggle small random objects, but even this has uses.. Juggling is quite relaxing and will offer alot of unique bonus's.. until the Juggler's concentration breaks. (a buff with a long cool down, {duration? is optional}, and effects increases with higher Juggling levels, along with how many hits he/ she can take before faltering, may require Juggling equipment/ items to use.. would be interesting if anything Juggled like this had a high chance to break, so if 4 objects was the minimum to Juggle, half would break as an alternative cost to )

As a Juggler practices they tend to realize that alot of Juggling is all about calm multi-tasking.. while not being overwhelmed. Skilled Jugglers realize they can throw multiple objects at once quite easily, with similar hand motions to Juggling. (grants multi-throw ability, short/ no cool down, possible cost {although I don't think it is necessary, since it has higher ammo cost} anything thrown like this will probably do 66% normal damage, and throw around 5 at once, at higher Juggling levels can throw anything as a thrown item, at the highest Juggling level, wands and weapons can be thrown for additional damage (wands will explode, doing half/ a third their charges at once.)

Jugglers start to realize that anything can be Juggled.. hand movements, words, even their own existence. Jugglers can now Juggle themselves, which while incredibly disorientating, allows for unique attacks in battle. (Jugglers have a % chance to hit in melee/ while throwing/ shooting crossbows/ using wands {optional}/ or using abilities multiple times {each hit may not do full damage, probably should only do 66% to 33% of normal damage; depending on amount thrown/ hit.. it should probably do close to double, or more damage total though since its a % chance}, at higher levels with only one ammo/ charge cost/ enemy gets only one chance. This is separate from the activated multi throw ability, since this effects all normal attacks, crits, and can even effects abilities, there is even a chance that the multi throw ability can activate this, and throw many more than normal.)

Master Jugglers learn how to Juggle the very power of the universe.. Juggling fire balls is a small feat for Jugglers of this skill. (Can multi cast spells for a higher cost, example: instead of laying one fire mine you lay 9 in a 3x3 grid.. probably for double or triple cost, depending on how many were multi cast. You also gain the ability to use all of a wands charges at the same time, and this works when Juggling wands {using more than one at the same time}. I am not sure what exactly this should do, but should probably just make the wand use half of its charges at the same time {buffs would stack} at the cost of all of its charges, with a hard cap at 3 to 8 uses at once. Higher level Jugglers can multi cast more efficiently, cast more, and spells cost less when cast this way; wands get more effect than normal)

After years of Juggling you have developed a zen level of calm concentration.. and have unlocked the secrets of the universe. This is the highest level of Juggling, and things that you used to struggle with are now effortless, and simple. (grants alot of passive bonus's, and improves every Juggling skill/ ability slightly.)

Edit: Just want to say that I would edit/ re-write/ add-to my other trees in this thread for clarity/expansion of the ideas if anyone would want me to.