Some experimental results ... seeking opinions

[Quatl]

I've been doing some tinkering with skills. Along the way to implementing something else an idea ocured to me, so I did some testing and it seemes to work. I'm not sure about names but how does this sound:

Skill/Spell Specization
Each character would be able to select a few of these, most likely over the course of leveling. maybe one every five levels or something. What they do is change the functionality of a certain set of skills or spells, or add a small advantage to the character in some other area.

For example there could be a Bolt spell splitting one that would allow you to fire multiple bolts with all bolt spells (fire bolt, ice bolt etc) I'm thinking this would split the bolts' damage as well so you'ld get several smaller damage bolts. Or there could be one that increases the amount of mana you recieve per point of int. Or one that increases the effectiveness of potions.

There could be multiple specialties for a given spell group. Alternatively these could work on individual spells (strangely enough this would be easier to implemment.) So you could turn your Ice Bolt into Ice Multi-Bolt, but have your Fire Bolt convert some damage to physical, or move faster or whatever else.

Essentialy I'm talking about adding a sort of crafting element to the skill/spell system. Allowing tweeking of spell effects a bit, and adding more creativity. Each character you create would be more unique, more a product of your imagination.

One variation would be more vanillaish where each base spell has a sort of tree. Each branch adding some thing or another. The basic quantities (like damage) would be determined by the total points invested in the tree instead of those in each spell individualy. Think: 5pts in bolt and 5pts in multi-bolt, allows you to cast either a lvl 10 fire bolt (one potent bolt), or lvl 10 fire multi-bolt (several smaller damage bolts ina spread).

Most of these things already work, so this is not pure fantasy. There are some complications, and certain enhancements are more difficult or impossible.

I'm curious what you all think. Both of the basic idea, and if you have thoughts about what specialties you'ld like to see for various types of spells and things.

-Quatl

[Phlebiac]

Sounds good to me.
While I read your post I was thinking about skills that maybe increase the amount of essence you can apply on an item or which increases the outcome of crafting recipes in any way.

[Quatl]

Not a bad idea here's some related thoughts:

"unique" items spawn with quitessense on the already and no other mods (also would be much more common to drop, perhaps 1 in 100 or 1 in 50, names would be general like "Horadric Short Sword", or "Alchemicaly Suitible Tower Shield", higher level req items could have more points on them) Everyone could enchant these. I like this idea in part because it makes "Unique" mean what it says

Then possibly as a specialty type choice you could select an item type (likely broad groups like melee weapons, torso armor, jewlery etc) to be able to enchant the way it works now (spectral elixer -> enchant any item grade.)

So you'ld have to give up some skill/spell effectiveness to gain extra enchanting effectiveness. I like trade offs like this in general, I think it adds veriety in a way that is meaningful rather than only appearance.

Perhaps enabling one to place modifiers on item types that don't usualy allow it (like +damage on boots, or +hps on weapons.) This one is potentialy hazerdous to "balance" but possibly interesting.

-Quatl

[Nameless]

All these skill choices would be through which skills you put into the tome, right?

Is there any way a char can have more than 1 tome? Is it personalized? Even if it has a "carry 1" mod, you could possible still swap tomes with a mule. Then you could have one tome for regular play and one for crafting (or several if you need different specializations).

Even one char can't swap skills, you could still make "craftsman" chars who don't have very good all-around skills but specialize mainly in crafting who then mule the crafted items to other chars. You may have to set up MP games and rush those chars, but...

Just something to think about.

[Quatl]

That's certainly true Nameless, there are issues with Tome passing in general, but more so with crafting skills, as they don't play a role in combat.

There are other ways to store crafting specialties in theory. It should be possible to do it with one param based stat (character saved i mean.) Then another character's tome wouldn't work for that.

I think tome passing may be solve-able with code editing, but CE is a bit scary for me still, so it's not likely to happen unless someone made a plugin for it.

The ability to pass empty tomes on the other hand is actualy kind of nice. If you hate a character's skill selection you can just rebuild your skills on a new tome.
-Quatl

[Phlebiac]

I thought about your ideas over night and one thing that came to my mind is, that these new skill choices which are in the tabs would be the only reason right now to start a second character at all.
As you said if I don't like my current build or want to try something else I can simply change my tome, which is really nice in my eyes. But if I want to have a good crafter and some other char, I would have to play at least two chars.

[Quatl]

That's an interesting perspective, I hadn't thought about it tht way. Stats will be more important in the new skill system, which should partialy reduce that.

They will directly add to things like damage, and weapon types and the skills for melee will make more use of them as well.

I'm useing a few stereo types for planing these relationships (I'm avoiding the word class here because It's more about the skills than the people) Mage, melee fighter, ranged fighter, summoner, manipulator, and rogue.

These represent catagories of skills, and they have diferent needs in terms of equipment and attributes. The reason for this is not to force builds, but rather to help balance unmeasuareable quantities of skills better against each other.

These areas are further broken down into clusters of skills, which internaly renforce each other. When creating a hybrid skill set across stereo types you will find that you trade raw power for versitility in comparison to a specialist.

[EDIT: I didnt explain well above, the sterotypes are to help determining inter skill set stat contributions, not only how skills directly interact. By stats I mean primarily str,int,dex, and vit, but also secondarily magical modifiers from equipment, like dammage adds, speeds, crushing blow etc.]

I want to avoid as many Uber cracks in the skill system as I can, creating many good sets rather than a few super strong ones.

For example melee skills (with a few exceptions) do not renforce spell like skills in terms of numbers (though they can renforce a strategy that includes both.)

I'd get more specific, but the exact skill set is still fluxuateing. I have to find the happy place between my ideas and what D2 will allow I'm not quite there yet. I'm only just starting to feel like I know what I'm doing with D2's quirkyness

-Quatl