Purchasable Skills/Spells for Casters

Right now of the four available -- Identify/Locate/Comprehend/Tarot, there are primarily skills casters/communers get and melees/hybrids don't.

I propose the following be available, which gives a mix of value to casters/communers, melees, and hybrids. I don't think any of these adds would significantly skew PK balance. They are quality of life type enhancements.

Primarily for Melees

• Locate Object
• Comprehend Languages
• Identify

Primarily for Casters

• Rescue
• Haggle
• Lore

For Everyone

• Tarot
• Mercy (same rules as creation perk, no dks/saders)

I'm going to have to disagree on the mages section.

The only people who don't get haggle are paladins and monks.

Lore is far less useful than identify.  Lore will tell you what area the item is from, but identify will give you accurate info on the item.

Most mages would flee/return so they're not being targeted.  I don't see mages using rescue.

I'm not saying mostly for them because they'd find it most useful, but because they don't get lore/rescue, at least, very often. Many mages already have locate/comprehend/identify so the only thing they have to purchase is tarot. With this, most classes would have at least 2-3 things to buy, at least, even if they aren't all amazing.

I don't really see a need to limit any purchasable skills/spells based on your class.

What I would like to see added is things like preserve, peek, and know alignment.

As for edges, it would be nice with things like extra damage against mobs, or increased damage reduction vs mobs (charmies excluded), empowered locate object (+10 spellvl on the spell - still wouldn't go through nolocate).

I don't think I'd want anything on that mage list.  I want to see a some pk edges such as:

All 150 to point

Touch of death.

10% increase to maladictive

Mental Monstrosity 

10% increase to mental spells 

Age of Elemements

10% increase to afflictive.

No real insentive for me to Rp as a mage.

Are we getting 'swordsmaster' for +10% cutting damage too? I don't know. Stacking damage like this isn't really a good path to go down in my opinion. There's still edges that are useful to casters, although generally, yes, melees benefit from them more (although curse resistance, plague resistance, etc is useful for mages too).

We’re kind of down that path already. Instead of RPs to stack damage, you can use them to stack defenses (ac, saves, plague resist, even get some hitdam, more bash effectiveness) and build mostly offense with items. I don’t particularly view adding these buffs to spell types as beneficial, but I also don’t see how it’s different conceptually from what is already available.

I think buying proficiency points is a decent route to explore.

RP proficiencies could affect spells since they currently don’t. @Erelei is more than talented enough to code a RO edge proficiency for spells to increase their effectiveness within reason. Adding a value equal to the RP cost and keeping it under game breaking won’t be too difficult. Limit it to one spell per character and you won’t have too much bitching. 

Make it class specific and you limit it further. So, no dispel magic, no sleep, no plague, etc. 

Invokers could gain a higher chance tk flameblind off firestorm.

Battlemages could see a minimum of CAP damage for sharpmetal.(since it’s weak af)

Shamans could get a +2 for deteriorate.

Clerics could get isolate upped to be an actual effective spell.

Then you could have the hybrids gain something.

DK get an extra 4 hours in unholy strength.

Paladin gain an additional plus to hit/dam.

RP SHOULD affect PK. This game is all about RP and offering these selections allows a person to work towards character development. Mages shouldn’t be excluded.

I see much of FL like I see anime and I think a lot of us do too. Character advancement means power and that’s cool.

Class specific edges. That's interesting.

47 minutes ago, Trick said:

I see much of FL like I see anime and I think a lot of us do too. Character advancement means power and that’s cool.

I personally don't want to have to be Krillin for 200 hours until I have written enough homework to advance my character to being Piccolo.

1 hour ago, Zoichan said:

Class specific edges. That's interesting.

The current shield bash edge isn't just class specific but selectable specific.

personally id like to get away from RP giving PK edges at all. Not that I don't like the idea of being rewarded for my effort, I am just sick of it being used as a reason some people aren't playing. Give me more RP perks. Titles, make RP forge armor have base stats + the psi enhance flag. No need to make it OP, but if my character wants to make a badass breastplate, he simply wont because he is skipping out on 60-100 ac by ignoring other items that could be in that slot in favor of jewelry. Give us options to make custom stuff that ISNT owner only. Let it follow the existing eq formula. Let us choose damage nouns on pit weapons, make it more interactive to build (like sader weapons for example). Maybe I dont care if it is no remove since I am playing a thief and want my offhand weapon easily removable. Maybe my invoker doesn't care about flameblind on his staff, but does want shocking and vorpal. What if im a monk, or bard? Why can't I make a set of pit beads and choose which stances are empowered, or why cant I make the exact bardic weapon I want? Why not unlock an armor forge if people don't want to make a weapon. An FG for example will probably rarely use a pit weapon over the many fire weapons available. Why would I ever use abnegatum when bardiche exists? Now maybe I would prefer to make a breastplate that has some affl saves on it because ice armor is a no go.

I would rather have the edges balanced than done away with entirely.  For as long as I can remember back before the edges, PK ruled RP.  If you didn't have PK first, moving anything RP just did not happen.  I watched a ton of players with stellar RP get steamrolled and delete.  They deleted because no one would listen to their RP that was not about PK.  We saw the advancements we have gained in the game due to pure RP.  Merchant would not exist without it.  Even the crusaders took RP to form first and for a long time, along with Pk.

Essentially before, if you couldn't PK do not bother to RP.  Now, you at least have incentive to RP and as far as I am concerned it is a better environment all the way around.  But, the power creep is real, so scaling it back would not be a problem at all for me.  Just like the IMMs are rebalancing the equipment, (and doing a great job of it) RP points could use a rebalancing as well.  As far as I'm concerned you should not be a specialist at anything without being a scrub at something else.  If you can resist every spell thrown at you, your defense against melee should suck.  If no melee can touch you, someone who uses spells should eat you alive.  If you have a balance of both, then you should not steamroll anyone and no one should steamroll you.

With that in mind, I am all for specializing characters.  If you want to be a glass canon, you can be and the edges should reflect that.  You want to hit undead harder?  Fine, but they will also hit you harder as well.  You want to resist those shaman spells?  Fine, but when they do land they will have double the effect.  You want to avoid arrows?  Fine, but when you do get hit with one it does 50% more damage.  

Just my two cents

It's been my observation that rp points tailor to melee and maybe communers.  The end.  There is nothing you can say to me that will change my mind.  Resist curse/Resist plague/Resist blashamy.

0 resist silence.  Want to hurt demons?  Oh only weapons count.  Want to hurt Avatars?  Again only weapons count.  I need not go on.  Why do I care about an rp necklace?  Why do I care about -20 a.c.. 

Maybe bless works for all.  If I get plagued, I use a staff easily obtained or fight near my cabal.

No real incentive to rp for me, as I come here to pk and don't play melee, nor will I ever care to.  15 years later and I hate kicking dirt.

Well 10% damage buff on a weapon is a far smaller buff than 10% damage on a spell that also scales with spell level. 10% extra damage on a melee hit doing decimates is 3-4 damage. 10% to a hellstream is 20-50+.

1 minute ago, 'tarako said:

Well 10% damage buff on a weapon is a far smaller buff than 10% damage on a spell that also scales with spell level. 10% extra damage on a melee hit doing decimates is 3-4 damage. 10% to a hellstream is 20-50+.

I'm also getting hit 7 times in a round.

That 10% adds up

you are never getting hit 7 times a round in melee by anything anyway. 4-5 is the top end of what you are gonna see in melee.

I just think that spells are much harder to balance a damage buff on than weapons are. 10% damage buff on an invoker is A LOT of damage, Espescially for something like call lightning, jet steam, and hell stream. 10% damage on call lightning can easily be 30 damage per cast.

Just now, 'tarako said:

you are never getting hit 7 times a round in melee by anything anyway. 4-5 is the top end of

I've posted a log of me getting hit 17 times on a double round with wreaths and procs on the prayer form.

I've been hit 5 times and mealsteomed plus procs.  Don't tell me I don't get rocked.  I've been rocked many times.

Where's my enhance parry as a mage?  Where's my reduced drama?