Empath revision?

[Onimaster]

Hey,

I was looking at the Empath's abilities again, and I wanted to suggest some possible changes for the new rules update.

As it is the Cause Fear and Cause Sleep abilities could be better for the Pvp environment that FH fosters. I feel more strongly toward the former suggestion than the latter, but as long as we are tossing things out for discussion...

1> Fear for every other discipline that gets it costs a life point and no count. This makes far more sense to me than the 30 count Empaths have to use.

If we could burn a life point (25% of most Empath's life) and toss fear like the barbarian and beast hunter it could be used to protect ourselves from close range combat much more effectively (as we take 2-3 hits and die). I think that this isn't too unbalanced a change as Fear is mostly defensive in use and many disciplines/paths get resists to it.

2> Cause sleep costs a 30 count and a life point to use, and then you are rooted in place. I can relate to this as it's a potent ability... until you look at how many resists are floating around out there that can block a "magic-sleep" call (usually, 2 per person). Advanced/master rogues can do stun strike/nerve pinch for a 10 count. True they have to hit with a melee weapon and not a packet, but we have to spend roughly 25% of our life to make it work and are rooted in place, with no armor, so once the spell fails/is resisted we are lambs to the slaughter. Plus, the battle with the wraiths showed me just how many healers have awaken and can pop people right back up again.

I think that the Empath 'Cause Sleep' should be shifted to 'Cause Paralize' and make it a less resistable shorter duration (like 30 seconds), or take away the life point cost to use the ability.

[Ug]

Hmm. I'm not a big fan of this as I think empaths are powerful enough, however I think that doing Magic Paralyze (10 second paralyze) instead of Magic Sleep would be very cool.

[GM_Chris]

I can see the fear suggestion, but not the sleep sugestion.

Sleep is a death sentence used on the right person. There will be less resist magics next year which will increase its ability.

Chris

[GM_Chris]

Brad that is a great idea except it adds a call to the game and I dont want to do that.

Chris

[Ug]

Actually, it would just put a call back into game that was just taken out But yah... (I said 10 seconds, cause that is sorta the standard, per root.)

[WayneO42]

Empaths are pretty set in my opinion. If you dont think empaths are effective, you may want to re-examine how you are playing one. I do like the paralize idea. The trick is doing it without adding another damage call. I guess we could use "Root".

[GM_Chris]

Oh yeah the 10 seconds was a perfect #

We are trying to remove damage calls even now though..limit them as much as possible. Makes for an easier system while at the same time loosing some things you can do.

Chris

[Onimaster]

I'm glad you think my comments about fear are valid. That was the one that I wast really trying for input on. I think it would be really cool to give empaths at least one ability we don't have to count for.


Yeah, I am good with sleep staying the same if next year there aren't quite so many resists out in the field. I can then justify spending the life to toss sleep at a warrior if he's coming at me. And honestly, as it stands I'd use a boom now rather than sleep every time because at least then a fighter might only have 1 resist magic that a resist sleep won't help them rather than the other way around.

Paralyze/stun was really just to brainstorm different possibilities. I am new enough I have never seen stun in effect or how lethal it is. Erika mentioned it to me once as a Drow elf's boom tag-on bonus being too potent, but I'd think 30 sec of paralyze would be less harsh than 5 min of nap time. Never really expected the GMs to go for it though. The life point cost was my real goal.


Good suggestion Wayne, but I still see root as more of a druid thing... I don't wanna take some other class/discipline's cool ability, just tweak mine so it functions better in 1 on 1 situations. (Not that I am lost on that being the point of the different paths...)

[Donmayo]

I simply don't like that every one of their calls has magic. Making the mage hunter actually an empath hunter, as they are completly ineffective v. one. Otherwise the rest is fine.

Maybe take magic off of sleep and fear. Of course if the blink/resist spell is getting crushed, then that is fine. Giveing everyone in game only 1 resist magic.

[WayneO42]

I simply don't like that every one of their calls has magic.

Everyone of their calls has to be magic because of the metaphysics of the game. All their effects are achieved through channeling and concentrating magic

Making the mage hunter actually an empath hunter, as they are completly ineffective v. one.

The Witch Hunter is meant to be an empath Killer. Maybe we need to change the name of the discipline for semantics sake

[Ug]

Remember, it is only "Mage Slayer" at CARPS. It is "Witch Hunter" and as there is no "Witch" discipline....

I think the confusion is mostly due to CARPS politics rather than anything to do with Final Haven.

[Kidwynn]

The reasson the title of Witch-Hunter was changed at CARPS was due to politics. It has evolved from Wretch Hunter to Mage Slayer to now it's better verbage of Mage Hunter.

Seriously, if you want that discipline to describe what the old Mage Hunters of Silverthorne (DeVris now) then I would use like "Empath Hunter" or "Empath Slayer". Simple, direct, and to the point on what they do.

Humm..more to add on this topic. I would think in Haven society the Empath Hunter or whatever would hate magic and castors even more then they would have back before the breaking. They already had that "programming" in their make-up and one would think it could have only gotten worse if these Empath Hunters are adhering to the old code of the Witch-Hunter and all.

Anyway there is my oh abotu 3 cents on this one.

[Ug]

I personally like Witch Hunter. They hunt anything that looks like it has to do with witchcraft.

arcanes. empaths. arthos. magic items. etc.

[Lambic]

Not knowing almost anything about CARPS, I feel I should point out that unless we are trying to push people towards only roleplaying Witch Hunters in one particular way, then we need to use the most open ended name we can.

Since there is no Witch discipline or path I think this is a pretty good term to use. Magic Hunter might be a little more correct but it doesn't sound as good. I have always been one to go for the style points.

Mage Hunter sounds like it is aiming the character at PvP, which it might be. I also worry about influencing peoples ideas about what and how they want to roleplay their character. If there is a history of Witch Hunters or whatever then that is character background stuff that can be found out in-game or from GMs.

[WayneO42]

The idea of the disciplines is to be open ended. They are meant to be more like mechanical skill sets than a definate character template. We are going to go back through the disciplines and re-name/reword the descriptions to reflect this. Basically the discipline description should give you a feel for the common character traits for people of that discipline or skill set. These can be used as a framework to build an individual character history.

As a side note: I am in favor of renaming the witch hunter discipline but there is still an active Witch Hunter Society in Phanterra and they are more bitter than ever. Not to mention, they are even more dangerous because, now that elemental magic is gone, their magical bonds and restrictions no longer function