This is the beta release of the Compleat Essential Skills -- combining Essential DoD Skills I (Bushido, QiGong, and Poisoneer) with Essential DoD Skills II (Ninjitsu, and Silver Tongue, and Warlockery) and the never-released-as-its-own-independent-entity Essential DoD Skills III (Kung Fu, Wild Magic, and Archmage, and Degree in Dungeoneering.) It also includes Drunken Boxing and Gangnam Style!! Full documentation of all of the mechanics is posted later in this thread, but linked to in the spoiler below. Known Issues: Loren has reported that on one occasion, he lost a Kung Fu buff, which is supposed to be impossible. Spoiler: Official Documentation Official Documentation for 'Compleat Essential Skills' version 1.3b": CES is composed of 11 skills, three for each archetype plus a bonus one for Rogues and another for Fighters. Warrior skills: QiGong, Bushido, Kung Fu, and Gangnam Style Rogue skills: Poisoneer, Silver Tongue, Ninjitsu, and Drunken Boxing Wizard skills: Wild Magic, Archmage, and Degree in Dungeoneering First, for the people who don't like spoilers, an aesthetic description of each: QiGong QiGong is the Warrior's answer to Wizard skills, providing our armor-clad champions the ability to throw blasts of energy at distant foes, purify their bodies of negative magicks, and basically pretend to be a character from Dragonball Z. The purpose of QiGong in game mechanical terms was to give Warriors a reasonable way to consistently engage in ranged combat without making them too powerful. Bushido Bushido is the warrior's 'survivalist' skill. Each level adds something that makes life as a warrior slightly more livable, from knockback blows to broad-spectrum resistances to Magic Reflect. A warrior with maxxed-out Bushido loses out on a bit of offensive potential, but gains serious defenses. Bushido was originally created to address a few known 'problems' with Warrior builds, but has morphed as those problems were addressed in the core game into this general survival-oriented beast of a skill. Kung Fu Kung Fu -- because every good game needs stance-dancing somewhere. Kung Fu skills are each individually quite strong, because you can only have one active at a time. Kung Fu artists are powerful and adaptable, with a stance for every situation from disarming traps to fighting powerful (possibly even lich-level) mages. (Ironically, those two stances are actually the same stance. But that's neither here nor there.) Gangnam Style Gangnam Style is the "flipside" of a traditional Gish skill -- rather than being a Wizard skill that uses Wizard abilities to enhance fighting, it's a Warrior skill that uses mana and gives away teleports, nukes and pets, but insists that you have been in melee combat very recently before you can use them. Poisoneer Poisoneer was created with the intent of allowing you to kite, snipe, hide, and otherwise wage war with cleverness and mobility, knowing that if you can stay out of range long enough, your enemy will die in due time. By applying poisons in a variety of ways from procs to throwing weapons to defensive PBAOEs, poisoneers thrive when given skills that allow them to escape. Silver Tongue Silver Tongue represents the archetype of devilish Roguedom that talks it's way out of sticky situations. By applying a variety of non-magical debuffs to his foes by talking to them -- and later expanding those skills to talking themselves INto things -- the Silver Tongued rogue is a brazen killer whom you will thank as he walks off with your panties. Ninjitsu Ninjas are known for one thing -- avoiding combat at all costs. Not that they can't fight -- they do, and well -- but they'd much rather throw shuriken and kunai at you from a dozen paces away and use their ninja magic to disappear if you get anywhere near them. At the highest levels, ninja can even remain invisble as they mow down their opponents in brutal fashion (though they sacrifice both body and mind to do so.) Drunken Boxing Drunken Boxers are like Kung Fu students who couldn't be bothered with all that discipline and whatnot. They prefer to stay totally knackered and slaughter their opponents while doing so. Drunken Boxing revolves mostly around -- surprise! -- drinking, but has a few clever stunts that are useful even without the sauce. The mechanical purpose of Drunken Boxing is to give melee types something fun to do with all that booze. Wild Magic Wild Mages don't really learn spells -- it's not about that. Instead it's about taking the spells and skills you learned elsewhere and giving them an ever-increasing chance to have profound but uncontrollable effects on the world around you. From raining existential hell down upon your foes to turning you into a giant carrot, there's nothing about wild magic that is controllable -- or weak. Wild Magic may also very well kill you -- or get you killed, if you manage to accidentally rain existential (or some other sort) of hell down upon Brax, for example -- so be CAREFUL. Archmage Archmagic is strange stuff. Archmages study magic not to use it, but to bend it over their knee and spank it like a stick of butter. Every Archmage spell has a bewildering variety of effects depending on exactly how you target it, but not every Archmage level gives a spell. Scattered throughout are short but complicated rituals you can complete to gain cosmic power as well as metamagic boosts that make all your spells stronger in some ways but clumsier in others. Quite possibly one of the hardest skills to take full advantage of, Archmage is not for newbs. Degree in Dungeoneering Degree in Dungeoneering is another wizard skill that's not much about spellcasting. It's more about having adventures in null-time at Astral College while you explore the Dungeon in meat-time. In other words, you get to apply the practical (and less practical) lessons of college life to your exploring the Dungeons of Dredmor. Drinking, mostly, but some other stuff too. Complete Warrior Skill Mechanics Complete Rogue Skill Mechanics Wizard Skill Mechanics, missing Wild Surge mechanics. Wild Surge Mechanics NEW: Drunken Boxing and Gangnam Style Mechanics Current Version: 1.3b (For some reason, I never added the proper icon to Wild Magic's Carroty Form. It's added now. -- Dim Mak wasn't working. It now goes off randomly in 4-9 turns. ) Spoiler: OPEN SOURCENESS OF THIS MOD Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this mod and associated documentation files (the “Mod”), to deal in the Mod without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Mod, and to permit persons to whom the Mod is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Mod. Permission to sell this mod is obtained from Gaslamp Games prior to any attempts to sell this mod. THE MOD IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE MOD OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE MOD
I know it's not exactly what you wanted, but are you sure the name should have "compleat" and not "complete"?
The first Archmage skill doesn't seem to be giving a spell. It seems like it should based on the description, but I could be wrong.
Bah! Took me almost ten minutes to figure that one out. I used the wrong syntax for the 7th level Warlock multibuff, and it wasn't scanning Archmage at all because of it, even though it made it past my XML validator. I've reuploaded the fix'd version, prease to tly again.
Essence, I'm not sure if it did this before but the Wild Magic proc that spawns items all over the place is going off a fair bit when I cast, even though I haven't put any points into the skill. I was under the impression that it wouldn't proc until I had put at least one point in. Ditto for the Summon Dread Collectors proc, which killed me when I was on CL 2 a little while ago. Have you changed the way the skill works, or did I just luck out and never get hosed that bad before? I played with Wild Magic down to DL 8 once and got the skill up to Lv. 3 and never saw Dread Collectors. Also, I don't know if they did before but Wizards Sleeves now sell for a bunch. I got three from a single cast on DL 1 when I respawned after the Dread Collector fiasco, so my new character is probably richer than she should be... I don't know to what extent you can prevent that kind of thing, but you might want to look into it.
OK, yeah, that's part of the documention that I'mma write up once my workload lightens a bit. Wild Magic isn't divided into different chunks anymore -- there is only Wild Burst, and it can create any of the old Wild Magic effects. Gaining more levels of Wild Magic just gives you more of a chance to Wild Burst and lets you Wild Burst under different conditions (i.e. combat, drinking alcohol, etc.) So yes, it's possible for any Wild Magic proc to go off on your very first cast of the game, in theory. That said, there is no (and never has been) a Summon Dread Collectors proc. I think that might just be some Wild Magic AoE going off near Brax and him getting pissed about it. That was an early lesson as a Wild Mage: don't cast near shops. I wish there were a "negative Taxa" so you could specifically make Brax immune to Wild Magic, but until that happens, it's going to continue being a danger, I'm afraid.
Ah. Well, at least I don't have to worry about Dread Collectors randomly being added to my Monster Zoos. I didn't even known Brax was nearby when they showed up. I suppose that's just one more part of the skill to get used to, though.
It truly only does. There are lots of XML hooks added in .10 that Archmage takes advantage of. Arcane Consecration, Eyes of the Elders, and a couple of the Archmagic spell effects won't go off in anything prior to 1.0.10.
Is it possible to effect the chance of negative effects and positive effects based upon the number of points in the Wild Magic skill? (I presume so, but it needs some tweaking.) Also, based upon the discussion, could someone explain if Brax gets pissed when he takes damage, or every time he is potentially effected? If only when he actually takes damage, he could have a nice buff to resist everything better than Dredmor, but lower health so you only need to do a tiny amount of real direct damage. I like Archmage too. I am utterly confused by it though. Half the skills make no real sense in most contexts. I know this is the intent, but I cannot even figure out how to get beyond "Arcane Consecration Step 1" or the "Eyes of the Elder Beings" thingamajig. It seems to have potential, but I will probably have to spoil everything by reading the XML to see what I need to do and what it offers in reality. Thank you for making the mod set.
BAH! Somehow one of my changes got undone in all of my d!cking around. Uploading the corrected version in which the Archmage spell effects are all listed in the correct order in the spellDB and thus should all trigger correctly. Sorry!!
Whew, so it wasn't just me going insane thinking I'm doing something wrong after updating my game manually. Also, did you finish changing it around?
The first point effects the chance of such effects happening. Later points only affect this chance, but in a roundabout manner, but adding additional triggers (so the chance can only increase). It might be possible to change it so that the effect would be really different on every level, but that would take much more effort than it would be worth (not to mention that there's a chance it might not want to work like that). When he takes damage, or at least that's how it was to me. Though I do have to admit I rarely used any magic that dealt damage low enough for him to be able to resist it and just added special effects, so I might be wrong here. PS. Affect and effect are different words. I know I sound like an ass now, but it really would be better if you knew when to use which.
^^ What Kazeto said. I could have created different tiers of Wild Burst, but it seemed kind of silly. I like the way it works now. Wild Burst on-cast at 1st level, on-combat at 2nd level, and on-drink at 4th level, with 3rd level just being a huge Haywire boost and 5th level being a big boost to the on-cast chance and giving a spell that forces a wild surge. I think that's a good setup. If Nicholas ever bows to my whims and creates a HaywireBuff effect, I'll change 3rd level to have a much smaller boost to Haywire and a 100% Wild Surge on Haywire. But other than that, i consider this a done deal.
Dear Sir, On upgrading to the latest version of your most excellent product I was dismayed to discover that a character created under the old version had Kung Fu replaced with Wild Magic. Dunno if this is a major issue or if something just went haywire with my game, but I thought I should inform you, in case you wished to look into the matter. If not, I will just keep playing with the old version until that run is complete. Thank you for your time, Lorr
Apparently, saving and quitting while having a kung fu buff active, if you have less than than 80 HP, can result in this happening when you load the game again. Klortbork the Adventurer Killed On level 8 (sic, not even Killed by losing all his health)
