Notice that all skill names, abilities, scales and so on may change in the future. Redoing the opening post as I've gotten quite a bit further with the skill and apparently I can't write posts longer than X symbols. Long story short, Space Wizard is a centered wizard skill mod that I'm working on which features a number of basic themes and which attempts to make Wand Lore a viable skill alongside the Aetheric Deathray skill from the Rogue Scientist tree, or rather that was the original intention. It's more of a standalone skill now which focuses heavily on and wands rather than being a supporting skill. The skill obviously includes skills that focus on scalling with and due to the nature of both and the Wand Lore skill the will also include a number of buffs that can either increase or decrease for a short period, called Blindness Effects for now. The reasoning for why this being that it adds a hopefully fun mechanic to the skill but also that being able to craft Wand Lore craftables before time really isn't a dealbreaker or have a major impact on the game. The mod will also include two skills that assists the crafting aspect of the Wand Lore skill, or in one case kinda breaks it. The first one following the style set by the Clockwork Knight and Rogue Scientist skills where you get a 20% chance to gain a minor craftable when you kill something and the other changing one wand into another, although with a 20% chance of losing the wand aswell as facing some rather nasty debuffs. Spoiler: Level 1: Trust Me, I'm a Wizard. Starting item: Wand of Laser. Because, well, it's a wand and it's one of the few sci-fy'ish items ingame. Effect: Gives you a 20% chance to find magical residue which can then be used to craft either low level wands or be upgraded into Mystical Residue, which in turn creates better wands and can be turned into Miraculous Residue... which get's even better wands. Passive. Spoiler: Level 2: Very Magical Space Laser +1 Costs 12-4 x0.15 Deals (4+x0.34 ) + (2+x3) + (2+x3) to a single enemy and leaves a standard fire. Has a 1% chance to trigger a Blindness Effect when cast. Spoiler: Level 3: The Universal Greeting Costs 18-8 x0.15 Makes target demon, robot, "other" or animal friendly for 5-10 turns. "Others" and robots can be affected because, well, sci-fy whereas animals and demons can be bargained with. Has a 1% chance to trigger a Blindness Effect and causes the affected monster to gain Monsterous Rage and a +99buff which lasts for 5 tuns, to discourage spamming it. Not the best solution but that's why I'm brainstorming. Spoiler: Level 4: Interstellar Conqueror +3 Gives you an additional 2% chance to trigger blindness whenever you use a Space Wizard skill and a 3% chance to reset a random cooldown whenever you use a Space Wizard skill. Passive. Spoiler: Level 5: Beam Me Up Cost 14-4 x0.20 Either displaces the target, confusing it and leaving a debuff on it that I haven't really thought about. Will probally scale with or if damage is involved or simply displaces the character. Has a 1% chance to cause a Blindness Effect. Spoiler: Level 6: Orbital Laser Strike +1 Costs: 24-12 x0.15 Deals (4+x3) + (2+x3) + (3+x2) + (4+x0.34) in a 5x5 radius and leaves a standard fire at each affected square. May cause the Missile Defence Bill debuff or summon a hostile Aethernaut. Has a 1% chance to cause a Blindness Effect. Spoiler: Level 7: Wandtransmogrificationtorism Cooldown: 60. Changes one wand into another while keeping it's charges. Has a 20% chance to destroy the wand, a 15% chance to apply one of 3 different nagative effects related to this ability (haven't made them up yet though). Spoiler: Level 8: Master of the Universe +3 Costs: 32-16 x.0.20 Might give you a Hat of the Space Wizard for shits and giggles. Effects: Causes an effect in a 7x7 area bassed on what Blindness Effect is currectly affecting the character and dispells all debuffs from the character. Damage will possibly scale to, yes, again. None: Displaces all affected targets: MY EYES!: Deals and, paifies all targets, turns the caster invisible for 7 turns and silences him/her for 7 turns. Sooo Worth It: Deals and , confuses and silences all targets. It's Wrong and You Know It: Deals and , no other effects. With These Hands: Causes and leaves a toxic cloud which deals , and to all targets over a 7 turn period. Long and Hard: Deals + + to all targets, knockbacks and stuns for 1 turn. Spoiler: Blindness Effect 1: MY EYES! Gives -10 -3 -3 for 5 turns. Spoiler: Blindness Effect 2: Sooo Worth It Gives -2 +2 for 12 turns. Spoiler: Blindness Effect 3: It's Wrong and You Know It Gives +2 +2 -4 +2 for 12 turns. Spoiler: Blindness Effect: With These Hands... Gives -1 -1 -15 -5 +2 +2 for 12 turns. Spoiler: Blindness Effect: Long and Hard Gives +2 +2 +4 +2 for 12 turns. Spoiler: Missile Defence Bill Gives -4 -4 -4 -1 and costs zorkmids over time for 25 turns. Issues as of now: -The skill has a way too gishy feel, which I don't really mind that much as I want it to be synergetic with Rogue Scientiest but on the other hand I want Space Wizards to focus on getting the Space Wizard themed armour, all of which is caster bassed. - The skill may focus too much on , which in turn is both a plus and a weakness. It's a plus in the sense that it allows it to reward/punish the player with the "Blindness Effects" and ultimately helps the dynamics a lot. The problem though is that while the skill itself does offer interesting dynamics and synergies it's a terrible standalong skill and it may be too powerful early-mid game if focused on. Most obvious synergies so far: Rogue Scientist - it has refreshable cooldowns, a bassed skill which even gives you +2 and is overall just a great match, although Rogue Scientist does have some anti-synergetic skills with caster builds. Magical Law - you'll be getting quite a few nasty debuffs and while some of them are beneficial to you it's always nice to have the ability to hand them over to somebody else, also provides a lot of utility. Wand Lore - duh. EDIT: Also, if anybody have got any tips as for how to do DoD artwork I'd appriciate it. I don't know anything about the graphical side of the creative field and I've never done any digital artwork work before. Note that I'm looking for hints as to what software to use and so on.
At first I was like "WTF is he talking about?" and then it hit me. Ohh my flipping god that's amazing! Admittedly I want the humor to focus on terrible Science Fiction jokes and the Space Wizards being pricks, Wand Lore has all the masturbation jokes, but... it's too awesome not to have as a sidetheme. I'm thinking something along the lines of having 3-4 "blindness" debuffs/buffs in the skilltree that can trigger at various ocations. For instance when you cast a wand related spell, or just a spell in general. Hell it could even serve as a stance where you sacrifice your for and so on. Spoiler: MY EYES! Debuff: MY EYES! Art: That one artwork from the maingame files with the male hero having completely white eyes. Flavor Text: "So... it was true all along." or something like that. Effect: -10 -3 -3 for 5 turns. Or Spoiler: Soooo worth it. Stance Buff/Buff/Debuff: Soooo Worth It. Art: Saftisfied male hero, smirking. (Possibly holding a... meatwand?) Flavor: "You knew you shouldn't... but then again." Effect: -2 +2. So many possibilities!
I demand that you tell me more about that game! Although I didn't really come across anything particularly useful apart from the idea of a Wizard Spaceshuttle, which sadly the Pocket Dimension pretty much counts as. Kinda reminds me though that we still need to be able to use Wizard Land designs in our Pocket Dimensions. Currectly I'm debating how to make the skill synergetic with other skills than just Wand Lore and what skills it should be synergetic with. The obvious choice'd be Rogue Scientist for a crafting run with a focus on crafting consumables rather than the Clockwork Armour that the currect Rogue Scientist + Clockwork Knight combo focuses on, more or less. This could be rather easily encouraged by giving the skill a +1, not a +2 though as I don't like the idea of going higher than 10 in a crafting skill via level ups alone and seeing how Paranormal Investigator already has a +1 skill anything higher than +1 from the Space Wizard skill is a no-go. Problem though is how and why I'd make that odd 1 point in fit in with the theme without making it look, well, odd. Naturally it can't be on a scalling skill as that's not really the main focus here... although it could possibly become a sidetheme, a spellcasting / centered skill mayhaps. Likewise I'm thinking about whether or not the skill should use spells or activated skills as I naturally want it to fit in with both Rogue Scientist and Paranormal Investigator and they are both, unfortunately, rather unsynergetic with spellcasters seeing how they both have skills that silence you and whatnot. Problem though is that I want it to feel like a genuin wizard skill and to stand out a bit from Rogue Scientist and Clockwork Knight, which giving it spells rather than activated skills would be a nice and easy way to make it feel unique. Another problem though is that I wouldn't have any refference material for scalling as I can't think of any other crafting bassed skills that don't focus on activated skills AND that I'd have to deal with the issue that giving it activated skills rather than spells would basically make it a gish skill, which I don't really think that I want. Maybe something along the lines of: Spoiler: Chronic Lupester (last mastubation joke, dangit!) Level 4/5: Chronic Lupester. Art: Unused Wand Lore art of the male hero charging a wand with magical powah! Flavortext: "Don't blame me, they DO need to be luped once in a while!" for instance. Effect: Permanent +1 and gives you a passive 3% chance to reset a random cooldown whenever you cast a spell and a 3% chance to give you a random Space Wizard buff/debuff whenever you cast a spell. ...it's a bad example but I'm stuck and I hate being stuck. EDIT: Made it a slightly better example.
Updated the OP with a much more detailed look into what the skillmod'll probally look like. It's far from complete though but the basic gist is there now Ideas for flavortexts, balancing, changes to abilities and so on are most welcome.
...damn. I've been too absorbed by that game to focus on, well, life and my own modding project. As for the mod itself I've reached a few conclusions. Namely that I want to turn down the focus on tremendously as I've strayed quite a bit from my original design and lost sight of what I wanted. The plan was, and still is, to have act as the scaling stat for the laser bassed skills and have an Alchemic Pilferer'ish skill to assist with the crafting of new wands rather than to throw around all willy nilly. Also while the skill is very likely to keep the self-debuffing mechanic, to excuse all the exotic damage types and to fuel the capstone which has an idea behind it that I really like, they are going to be changed from their currect versions into what the skill was meant to be all about: Bad science fiction refferences. Likewise they won't be able to add anymore, although subtracting it is still totally legit, as it dawned (duh, I know) on me that the skill could effectively reach lvl 4 on it's own which'd make you able to make a lot of decent wands, ultimately cheapening Wand Lore to a ridiculous amount. - There's still going to be a blindness debuff though, although much more subtle. Problems that I'm stuggling with so far is "Interstellar Conqueror" as I'd like it to be a more interesting skill to pick. Likewise I need 1-2 more damage skills as so far Space Wizard only has 3 of those and 2 of them relies on which makes it feel rather, well, unmagical. Especially since I want to encourage the player to get Cloak of Sagan, Sash of the Blue Wizard, Hat of the Space Wizard and Starry Orb for reasons other than me just hurling in self damage (although it's likely that I'll do that) but also because they support a pure wizard build... which Space Wizard isn't as of now as it has too many good gish skills. Ohh, and flavor texts, science fiction tropes to refference and overall cool ideas would, of course, be much appreciated. Namely I want ideas for 4-5 buffs/debuffs to take the place previously occupied by "Interstellar Conqueror" and a shitton of flavor texts.
