Racial Legacies for Casters?

[Stiehl26]

Has there been any thought or consideration to adding to some applicable races racial abilities that compliment casters? I typically don't play casters other than shaman, whom aren't really casters at all but I was looking through the forum and was considering maybe rolling one and noticed that all racial abilities seem geared towards "melee" classes rather than invokers, necromancers, and illusionists (oh my!).

Some of the more "magically inclined" races (avian, elf, drow, gnome) could perhaps benefit from some "helpful fluff" in regards to their casting prowess. Ideas would want to be focused more on the race than the profession. For example:

1. Gnome Illusionist - Illusionary Focus: With their brilliant minds comes an exquisite attention to detail. This ability to so exactly create an illusion causes slightly more damage done by their summoned griffons, spectres, and dragons. (OR) A gnome is able to create an illusionary duplicate that is so perfectly made that the duration of the duplicate is minorly increased (an extra few hours at most).

2. Gnome Invoker - Enhanced Mana Shield - Because of a gnome's weakness to blunt weapons (beating, crush, smash, pound, etc) they have adapted their mana shield so that the shield, as well as performings it's usual functions, is able to slightly reduce (not negate) this weakness.

3. Avian Necromancer - Resistance to Plague - An avian necromancer, because of his close work with things dead (and potentially diseased), has a somewhat better tolerance to diseases and plagues than his/her brethern.

These are a few ideas that seem like they would be easily implemented and are not, from my perspective, overly powerful. Maybe there is no cause for casters to get anything extra or maybe anything extra would make them too powerful. Mull some ideas over, digest them, then shat them out here. Perhaps we can get a few posts into it before the flaming begins....here's hoping.

[Ergorion]

There is a race/class mage combo that does have quite a few extra perks. Illithid illusionist baby. I love those squids. Not only to they get two lives (shock), they get cone of force and leech.

I agree that some of the gnome combos should get some racial legacies if the imms do decide to go down the adding more legacies path. But I think with gnomes, the additions should go more on the warrior class side. There are currently zero (0) extant gnome warriors. Pip, roll one up and dominate with one. Gnome warrior keeperify it. And there are only two gnome rangers.

But back to your topic, which is the racial legafication of mages. I don't agree with your two suggestions involving the reducing of a race's vulns. Their vulns exist for a reason and I don't think giving certain racial legacies to races that reduce their natural vulns is a good idea.

From what it looks like from the player page, the race/mage combo that has the fewest players playing them are the elves. I haven't played enough mages to suggest racial legacies, but I just figured I'd point out the areas that aren't getting as much face time in the realms.

[Stiehl26]

There are several races/class combos that do not have much representation. I have never played an illithid, mostly because it seems like one of the hardest classes to play w/out ooc groups powerleveling. Are they that good erg...it sounds like you have played them a bit. Was there ever any talk about extending illithids to other casting classes?

[Ergorion]

[Davairus]

I don't think the numbers on the players page reflect the viability of the class/race combinations that are available, at all. Players select things for other things than their viability. You'd see plenty of gnome warriors if the evil alignment suddenly got removed, assuming those players decided to roll something up.

The other thing is, when it comes to racial legacies, they've been given out on top of other packages of code. That's why you see so many melee class legacies. Those are the guys that were most heavily worked on. There's still work to do on the other classes ... so no legacies have been designed for them, even though they were eventually planned for. A bit of discussion 5 years ago that I'm not likely to remember..thats it.

I feel like our new caster code isn't really ready to go out yet, either. I'm not sure how hurling in a bunch of untested code (well, that's not true, but numbers certainly aren't finalized), throwing on some bs'd racial legacies on top, and seeing what happens would be all that different from pouring gas on a problem and then throwing a match on top.

The priorities I want to follow is:
- finish Keepers (I think its been pretty close to being done with for a long time, but I feel there is still some disagreement on that matter. I would like to add at least one more cabal power, though, and I already have something in mind)
- grab a new Keeper imm, maybe another imm, and shuffle the staff around to new jobs ; this is mainly a response to forum complaints about the staff, which I think can be relieved by having more staff and a LOT more accountability for players in game. The behaviour is pretty bad in game and worse on the forums.
- tweak melee combat further. perhaps shoehorn in a duergar berserker racial legacy here, but only if I can think of something creative enough. Racial legacies are usually quite nice skills, so I'm not sure how i feel about doing that, but I have some sympathy for that combo.
- mess with afflctives and so forth...

Unfortunately every time I login there's some kind of mess and a lot of questions.. so I never really seem to make progress.

[Ergorion]

My gut feeling tells me evil gnome warriors wouldn't be any more popular than neutral ones.

[Stiehl26]

Sounds great Dav. Thank you very much for the update. I sometimes just get, what I think is a good idea based upon what sound like current issues people are having. You, being what I see to be the only one able to effect changes, know a lot more about what is intended to happen with the game, what is in the works, and what just simply won't work. Therefore it is great to hear what you have planned and what path you are taking for the game. I know you pretty much probably cringe when I post anything on here, and we often don't agree...mostly because of my ignorance of what has/hasnt worked and what is or isnt planned. I am not sure I have thanked you for the work you put into the game and the crap that you have to deal with before...so here is a big old thank you for the work you have done, the crap you have dealt with, and the work you continue to do.

I have played this game throughout the years and have had a warlord, legions, a keeper, a druid, and a knight...I have seen it before the combat module changes and after. I imagine my work will continue to take me to various states in the US and I will be sitting in hotel rooms typing away on this game for years to come.

[Mandor]

[Davairus]

I'd gladly play a gnome.. becausethey have great stats total, with tons of hp and int for quick training. Furthermore the vuln, though easily applied on them, is a shade of what it used to be. Remember the resists/vulns were overhauled. Only people who have stayed behind the times underestimate gnomes. They can get an assload of hp to make up for that vuln. They even have low exp for quick levelling. What's not to love here?

[Mandor]

gnomes were still decent prechange.

[Slade]

Gnomes don't need it; even non-mages (my ranger had 1K+ hp and a nice herb for example). Avian necro would be a great candidate (I'd also like to see avian get another con point and whatever else I recommended back whenever it was).

Back to mages, gnome is the one race that is actually painless to play (1 prac and lots of them, great stats, low XP, etc.) All the other races are various flavors of annoying (1 prac to 56%, bad defensive stats, bad hp, vulns in combination with one or more of the above, you name it).

[Zanderic]

I do think that the gnomes are a little under-represented here. Gnome invoker sounds the most obvious choice.