SKill Discussion Topics - The Shalafi Cabal Skill Trees

[Joel]

Ok, I'll create one such topic for each cabal and discuss them.

Here's the first : The Shalafi.

The Shalafi cabal is supposed to federate all the loyal and benevolent spellcaster of Midgaard. With the time, they have become more and more versatile and powerful.

<NOW IRELEVANT GO AHEAD FOR UPDATED SKILL TREES>

[Brother Laz]

WTF?!?

That sounds like I'll have to do a lot of work on my skill trees if I want to keep up.

Great work, if you can implement them, I'll be playing it no matter if it's 2 days before the beginning of the D2:BLACK beta!

[Xcolibri]

Ah, sweet, I look forward to see her in action (aka screenshot pleasure).
I noted that she doesn't have any lightning skill, is that intentional?
Also, if you haven't already done, I'd add a cast delay to the Earthling skill, otherwise triple-elemental damage is just too nice.
For the Magma Mine I would disable the damage to yourself or at least to your merc. Or will its AI realize the danger of getting hit by the mine?

Last issue is rather obvious: just remember to keep all skills viable, place holder are a pain, even more so with the ten skills instead of 30.
Other than that I am pleased to hear all these news!

[Joel]

Ok
First brother, i'm far away from your mastery.

XColibri, the Earthlings currently have a 50sec delay and all skills are viable at mid-high level.
For lightining I just can have space and link for them so ...

And the Conjuratrix already have chain lightning and the Hunter-Sentinel has call lightning ...

<NOW IRELEVANT GO AHEAD FOR UPDATED SKILL TREES>

[Xcolibri]

Then the lightning issue is fine.

The tree is built logically and makes sense. With the skills properly balanced it will be a nice & steady development when leveling up. Like it

[Joel]

Ok nice, Tomorrow or later, screenshots !

[Joel]

<NOW IRELEVANT GO AHEAD FOR UPDATED SKILL TREES>

[Xcolibri]

I always like interesting new skill trees

I do have a concern about the Conjuratrix, though:
She lacks all the defensive skills of the Enchantress, but two of her skills enhance her melee attack. Won't this be too dangerous in the later stages? I'd dislike seeing Chill Touch / Burning Hands as placeholder.

[Joel]

In fact the conjuratrix is a bit a mix between melee sorc and tank sorc.
However, at later stage you could use the various summon to snip the monster at a distance or use a mid lvl shocking grasp as a keeper. The range of shocking grasp is approximatively twice as a polearm range and stun enemy. For mob control, call lightning should be suffisent ...

[Joel]

Second tought ....
Maybe that three elemental melee spell will turn into some others spells ...
Need to know which ...

[Xcolibri]

Well, if you change her first melee spells into range and melee, like you did with shocking grasp, then it could work.
The problem is that she will have to choose between spells and range attack and spells will probably succeed.

Can you give her a real summon skill? Because if all enhancements work with a summoned creature, then they are quite useful.

And if not, perhaps think of giving CS and BH a passive mastery bonus which improves cold / fire damage for your summoned.

[Joel]

OK, I see, why not something like :

Chill Touch : adds melee cold damage to you and all your summon ?
Shocking Grasp: adds melee/Ranged ltng+stun damage to you and all your summon ?
Burning Hands : adds melee/Ranged fire damage to you and all your summon ?

The summon are currently homing missiles with much pierce, good gfx and SrcDamage between 2 and 8. With 1.10, they could be turned into real sumlon (I hope).

I don't really want to add protection spell to the conjuratrix, they don't fit the theme ... but boosting these threes is better

[Xcolibri]

(This is closest to a 'thumbs up'-smiley)

Yes, really good now.

Now only Chill Touch is melee. Does it really chill how it says or does it freeze? Freeze would be better, I guess, or make the chill really long and slooow

[Joel]

The chill touch, chill for a long long time.

[Xcolibri]

Great

I'm keen on playing the mod, really!

[Joel]

Be patient, it won't last much now ....

[Mathiu Silverburg]

Seems great!
Also d&d fluor... for me, an old rpg player it makesa taer drop from an eye...
Anyway, the only thing I'd change is: aura of nystul =>nystul's magical aura and hand of bigby=>bigby's crushing hand... like it was it d&d. I hope may words don't look like complaining to you.

- Mathiu Silverburg

[Joel]

In fact, the only reason that I rename those is that the original name is bit large to be displayed correctly on D2 screen

Note also that I'll soon sum up this topics to set the advancement of this creation

[Mathiu Silverburg]

The matter of displaying the names on the game screen... didnt thought of it...

- Mathiu Silverburg

[Joel]

UPDATED SKILL TREES :
-----------------------------

Shalafi - Elementalist :

Code: Select all

Skill             Level Pre-requis Effet(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Burning Hands       5   -                Add fire damage to melee attacks.
Fireball           20   Burning Hands    Hurl a fire missile that leaves a patch of fire on strike.
Wall of Stone      10   -                Conjure a wall of rocks.
Stone Skin         30   Wall of Stone    Aura that grants red-dmg and ac bonus.
Storm Shelter      10   -                Wind armor that hurls lightning bolt at ranged attacker.
Shocking Trap      30   Storm Shelter    Stationnary trap that explodes in a chain lighting.
Freezing Ray        5   -                Freeze on hit missile with low damage. 
Cone of Cold       20   Freezing ray     Inferno like cold based attack.
Conjure Earthlings 40   Fireball-S. Skin Tri-elemental summon shooting various missile. 
Scourge            50   CE-CoC-STrap.    Chained multi-damage nova.

Shalafi - Battle Mage :

Code: Select all

Skill                     Level Pre-requis Effet(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tesseract                  5    -            Act as teleport.
Transform                 15    Tesseract    Aura.Increase your HP,stam & Hit recovery.           
Globe of Invulnerability  30    Transform    Mana Shield like protection.
Alacrity                   5    -            Charge up that increase attack speed.
Forgery                   15    Alacrity     Enchant like spells adding +ar/+dmg-mag to a weapon.
Bloodstone's Joining      30    Forgery      Charge up that adds lifesteal & manasteal to attack.
Mental Knife              10    -            Short range missile + weapon effects + magic damage.
Edge of Numaios           20    Mental Knife Medi Range piercing missile + weapon effects + magic damage.
Blade of Damocles         40    EoN.B'sJ.GoI Boomrang like missile +weapon effects + magic damage.
Brand of Ill Omen         50    BoD          Conjure a multi-FoH like skills that release BoD at impact.

Shalafi - Conjuratrix:

Code: Select all

Skill               Level Pre-requis Effet(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Invoke Familliar     5    -        Release a spirit that deals mag-dmg and pierce.
Charm Monster       15    IF       Turn a monster on your side.
Monster Summon      30    CM       Conjure a monster with a chance that it's still aggressive.
Brew Potion         10    -        Create a magic potion.
Invoke Reagent      20    BP       Conjure a magical reagents from thin air.
Create Focus        40    IR       Create a magically charged rod with spell charges.
Mark of the Wolf    10    -        Add +speed to summon, pets and allies.
Embrace of the Bear 20    MotW     Add +dmg/+att to summon, pets and allies.
Coil of the Snake   40    EotB     Add +res-all to summon, pets and allies.
Demon Summon        50    Cm-CotS  Conjure a hellish demon on your side.

Comments ? Suggestions ?

[Joel]

Well, hoping the format is good enough

[ChaoticDeath]

you tend to take a lot from NWN dont you Joel? (ex. cone of cold, burning hands i believe, stone skin which is both in d2 and NWN) but good job so far, the elementalist is my first choice though

[Mathiu Silverburg]

Not NWN Chaotic, but (a)d&d, which is far more than NWN...

- Mathiu Silverburg

[Aedeon]

very cool looking, the Battle mage especialy. You have elementalist down twice though, I'm guessing the second one is supposed to be something else probably the conjuratrix from before.

few questions, there are a few skills that I'm not sure what they'll do different when you power them up to higher levels, the monster summon, how is that powered up, are the monsters more powerfull or stay around longer? for the charm monster is that a percentage chance charm that goes up in level or is it that higher level the higher level monster you can charm (i.e. at very high levels can charm bosses at middle levels can charm champions) or it could go up in charm duration as it goes up in levels.

What sort of things will the Brew potion/Invoke reagent/Create Focus make?

and are the mark/embrace/coil auras or like warcrys or are they something new, the blessings you were talking about?
These are probably the coolest looking skill trees I've ever seen btw

[ChaoticDeath]

i was wondering, what is the demon summon gonna look like? because I can think of a few things such as a abyss night, which is good. but you have also recently discovered that you can convert things from NWN to d2, so i was thinking that a Balor would be awesome .
http://www.planetneverwinter.com/images ... balor2.jpg
that is either a balor or balor lord. heh heh.