Class: Sohei

[Tam]

Sohei are the devil.. ok.. maybe not. Here's some help in getting you started.

SOHEI

The sohei is a warrior-monk of Eastern mythos, a member of a militant order of religious soldiers whose purpose is to defend large monasteries from attack, or advance its interests in the outer world. They are less effective in combat than a warrior, but they have the added benefit of their mystical powers. Sohei are limited to those spells which make them more effective in combat. The primary statistics for a sohei vary with how you choose to play your character. Some skills are enhanced by a high DEXTERITY, while others may be enhanced by a high WISDOM score. A high CONSTITUTION is always a good thing to have. A sohei can be of any alignment. Like all classes, the sohei can increase his skills by using the PRACTICE command.

Now remember.. if you don't know anything about sohei dont be shy. Google your way to goodness and while you're at it, let me know what you think of the existance of a Sohei Society

-Tam

[MarcoDelVespuchi]

Sohei Society? Don't those all start the same way?

"Hi, I'm Marco, and I enjoy playing Sohei."

"Hi Marco."

[Theman]

Sohei are not the devil. It's just those of us
who prefer and have perfected the class
tend to lead darker lifestiles.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"

--Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

[Antessima]

I know I've said as much to tam before in an e-mail, and that it has been bandied about before and since that time, but I think Sohei ought to be given some illusion skills. Not some funky guy asking God to cut off King Welmar's head, but sleight-of-hand skills/spells, and stuff you might see magicians do in the cartoons. My favorite idea I came up with was the magic hole spell: creates something that looks like a portable hole, and the caster tries to place said hole where his opponent's feet are. If he is successful, it's like a wod, because hey, where do you think that mob is going? There's nothing on the other side of the hole for his body to go to, it's simply vanishing courtesy of gravity! Just think of how you would handle it if your foot or leg fell into a hole like that. Ouch! Of course, there are some, uh, side effects and potential problems if you cast it. First, don't use it for eq hunting. When the mob falls all the way in, ya know what, so does all it's inventory and gold. Second, as our mages often point out for us, casters of magic aren't always accurate when trying to cast those really big spells (like nukes and such), so there is the possibility that your busted little wand might make the hole under your feet instead, and boy, that would suck! Kiss your garland goodbye, and your super-stabber too!

Well, that was just one of my ideas. Let's get some more input in here, sohei are important! I mean, how else would we turn away totally clueless newbies who choose this class because it has a cool-looking name and eventually leave because they can't do squat with their flashy new character?

[pixie]

I think it would be very cool if sohei could have up to say 4 attacks per round, (2 hands 2 feet) but not be able to pass say, LIQ for dam, through massive eq limitations, it would be very cool if sohei were kinda like mages of the combat world, good eqed. Fine, arguably better nekkid.

fast as heck, but not too damaging on single strikes, bieng ungodly fast should also figure heavily in to their ac, or possibly dam reduction skills.

considered penalizing monks for having too much eq?

the shough of a shaolin master wearing anything but robes and maybe sandals seems kinda odd...

possibly increasingly restrictive 'vows' attatched to skills, gradually forcing soheis to 0 eq?

anyhow

level 8 dhit, level 15 3xhit, and level 27 4xhit
drain mana or moves on a per hit basis, as moving super fast would be tiring, either mentally or physically, or both.

necklaces are cool for sohei, as are rings, and some footwear, robes and cloth armor also, heavy weapons, heavy armor, holdables, lights and definately shields, just dont seem to jive with the mythos.


ha ha used jive and mythos in the same sentence!

[Dank]

FIVE THINGS SOHEIS MIGHT WANT TO DO BUT CAN'T

1. pop hair styling

despite what tam's avows, and he's avowed alot, soheis are simply an ancient caste of hindo-european hairdressers that were displaced during the incursions of the mongols during the tenth century. give them back their birthright.

> cast 'coif' welmar

King Welmar sports a new hair-do, a vast improvement on his ubiquitous Imperial Mullet.

2. make tea

given an odd assortment of items, a rope, black guyvel herbs, thiamin herbs and a dusty rose stone, allow the sohei to brew a startling darjeeling or an orange pekoe.

3. tree limb limbo

anywhere there's a tree, there's a personal dance floor built for a sohei! someone making fun of your ancestor's shrine? tired of the thick smoke trailing from your censer? jump into the sky and do the limb limbo dance and kick some zen butt while you're at it!

> cast 'limbo' [self]

You float into the canopy.

4. access to the coolest of asian mysteries

what self-respecting asian monk is not familiar with the readings of the I Ching? come on, wake up and smell the orange pekoe tea! the wonders of the I Ching allow the practioner a wide assortment of incantations that help promote a more harmonious chi.

> copy "I Ching" [target]

You have fashioned an ancient scroll of egg boiling.


5. build a monastery

if you've got a few centuries on your hands, what do you do? build a shrine? no! build a wall? no! build a monastery in a fifteen thousand foot pass? woot! you guessed it! the command requires a 10 day uptime and several pals willing to stay by your side feeding you waybreads as your toil to complete one of your sect's finest structures, replete with golden entry lions and cast-iron fire pots!

> build monastery

This may take awhile. One moment please...

[Cordelia]

Whilst reading the boards during my lunch-break today, a player suggestion triggered a idea that gradually flowered into how to fix the Mana-Channel conumdrum.

<i>Personally, my fix would be to scrap the Sohei class and use templates and class trees</i>

The idea originated from reading many years ago a M:TG [Magic: The Gathering] combination called 'Cadaverous Bloom'. For any future affadavit, the idea of M:TG appealed to me but the actual game mechanics (awful), as well as the fact that WOTC [Wizards of the Cost] wished to coin as much money as possible from the suckers, er I meant players, meant that I didn't actually play the game. Enjoyed reading articles about it, tho.

The whole idea of the combo was to use Black's traditional strength of using it's own life to enchance either it's creatures (pets) and/or damage spells with a card called 'Prosperous Bloom'. How would this translate to replacing the Mana-Channel spell? As Tam mentions, in its original form it was a no-brainer: good idea in concept but poor execution.

As someone else suggested, how about using HP to generate Mana? ** Rather than discuss the finer points of the actual mechanics (execution), it's the principle that's important. Certain spell classes could suddenly develop an interest in HP EQ ..

** Edited
Mana for HP wouldn't be a straight ratio of 1:1 - also, the kicker (I'm a sucker for pain) would be a sliding scale % of adverse effects - the worst (bad percentile roll) would be a disproportionate decrease in Mana AND HP. Ouch!

The actual principle in it's conceptual context revolves around cannibilzation i.e. deplete resources from one area to improve another. This principle can also be extended to items i.e. break perfectly good items to assemble another (potentially better) item. Or an item with different effects. Of course, there would be a nasty kicker in the form of % breakage i.e. the item may not work, or work in an unintended way. At worst, it may harm or even kill it's creator.

Regards,
Cordelia

[Dank]

more on cannibals...

instead of junking a corpse, why not eat the damned thing?

% eat 1.corpse

You are full.

sure, you take an alignment hit, but hey, i can't think of a better way to impress your favorite goblin hostess.

and more on cannabis...

let's be the first mud to legalize marijuana!

[Griffon]

What, smoking pot would decrease charisma and increase your stupidity? *ducks*

[pixie]

here is an idea:

Based on the level of all stats, str, dex, con, int, wis, cha...

Player gains level points to be assigned any damned way they see fit.

you would need to use the points at your guild to train in:

Hp
Mana
Moves
Skills
Dam
Hitroll

Each class would change toe cost of the respectiv skill, or atribute.

[Silverking]

If I'm not mistaken, the whole basis for the new leveling system planned is on the same principles you mentioned above. You get a set amount of points, or sessions per level, and you train the skills that you want and to what degree. I'm not sure if physical stats are included in that though. It may just be the skills/spells, and physical stats will be attained through the normal means (ie rerolling, leveling, and remorting).

[Antessima]

Just a quick note that is not as much about sohei as it is about the leveling system Cordelia proposed. I've tried playing other muds before that had such a system installed (not hp/mana, but the rest), and honestly, for someone totally new to that system, it was a total nightmare to try and figure out 1) which spells and skills I wanted, and 2) how to actually attain them. I've played muds for close to 8 years now, and I'm of the opinion that making characters excessively customizeable is a bad thing, because it increases the ways to confuse newbies, which keeps them from joining and enjoying the mud.

Just my .02 on that.

[Weeds]

Personally I think the old system where a Sohei could drain near 1000 mana should be put back in. That would definately increase the amount of people using sohei's again.

Weeds

[relantel]

What does it say about the class that I have a four (real) year old Sohei that is only level 19?

(Answer - nothing. I just haven't devoted the time to it that I have to my pals, jedi, mages and cleric)

[Maranta]

Unfortunately I think this is a class that raises high expectations when read about but those expectations get repeatedly quashed before a sohei can even reach level 15. In the end, all that's left is nothing but a glorified teleporter and gater IF they even manage to finish leveling it.

Like any of the other hybrids, Sohei received a lot of 'hand me down' skills with almost nothing unique to make them worthwhile. On top of that, they don't receive the spell bonuses a mage would; so even at 25 int, they couldn't outcast a mage with 18 int using the same spell. While this is fairly reasonable for having to split their training time, soheis never received anything that could make up for the lack of magical ability or physical might. They have no unique or spectacular skill that makes them worthy of any form of group and even just equipping them is a painful chore. Mana channel you say? Try using it on a romp through DOOM. Oh wait, thats right... it doesn't work on anything with a level higher than a message bot. Hey maybe when your group passes through a town you can quickly recharge and go back to disintegrating mobs... Sure. Just don't pick the wrong mob or you'll be sucked dry faster than a date with a vampire.

It might be said that with energy drain and mana channel soheis were overpowered when combined with inner gateway or tanking. Maybe, maybe not. Considering soheis only have three real spells at their disposal: disintegrate, fireblast and a nuke, they never exactly had a wide range of attacks. Just about every big mob has been anti-nuke for years and it takes a hell of a lot of unbonused disintegrates to knock down anything worthwhile. All it'd take is for some admin to put immune_earth on any mob they didn't want a solo sohei to kill and it'd be over before it began. As for fireblast, you'd be better off bringing a pellet gun than trying that waste of mana. Before the 1k hp/mana cap sohei could make for one hell of a tank with enough edraining and some good timing... but fun tricks like that are doomed for "fixing" whenever they're found. And before some admin gets all critical on me, I'm fully aware 10000 hp is overkill. But at least it gave groups a reason to take them along if they were shorthanded or didn't have a super tank!

All things considered, I'd rather run a ninja solo than run another sohei until they're revised.

-Maranta

[hurin]

The one thing that a Sohei lacks is something unique to a sohei in terms of a physical skill. Other than that Soheis are amazing in terms of a damage/spell damage class. Of course they can't out damage a mage with the same amount of mana as a mage, however when the mage needs to regen the sohei is off disintegrating more mobs thanks to mana channel, or constantly nuking with unlimted mana. Of course due to balance it was set that you can run up to onivel mana channel/edrain him then disintegrate him to death all in the same round. You have to find drain fodder. And that can be annoying for sure. And of course compared to a warrior it cant deal the same damage but it sure can take alot with 1000k hps and edrain at his disposal. Again annoying finding edrain fodder (especially since you cant edrain falcons anymore)

However in terms of a solo damage dealing class that never needs to regen Sohei is the ultimate exp runner. But in terms of group/skill functionality a sohei is somewhat lacking, one unique little skill could fix that. Just needs to be something truly unique not another 'hand me down'. The problem though is something too powerful could really tip the scales. And that would be the issue, keeping one of the highest damage dealing super classes from being the ultimate class(because then of course clerics would get pissed).

[Maranta]

I must and gladly admit you raise several very good points. Problem is though, what about all the other levels prior to mana channel? Yup, lots of regening and lots of craptacular spells trying to build up those levels. Not to mention their physical skills which make ninjas look amazing by comparison. Nuke comes last in their skillset so its not about to make things any faster slogging through the miserable middle levels that torture just about every class. And unfortunately with edrain, those 1000hps aren't going to last long against any large mob. Even if by some miracle a sohei got into a group and had his/her hp at the cap, curative magic won't do them any good since edrain doesn't function like resonance by raising their maximum hp at the same time. Once you're fighting and that hp is quickly worn away, its gone! Even running in a full ac set, sohei still have no group skills to make them capable of replacing a warrior, cleric, or even one of the seldom used ninja.

Just a couple more coppers for the pile anyway. Always nice to get an intelligent debate going.

[relantel]

I just need to learn more about the class and its play. Same thing goes for T & N for that matter. Scary to think I got to S19 (mud age 138) without really learning it. (then again, the only chars I've run to IMM have been Pal (3 times on 2 chars) and Mage (once) - familiarity making them easier play, I suppose.

I will say that I assumed the class by the religious nature of a sohei meant good alignment, and that I wrote off energy drain to that, thinking it was akin to an evil jedi type spell. Not that I could say what level that spell/skill came along.

EDIT: Logged on after the mud was back up last night, and got him to 20. Noted energy drain states a "heavy alignment penalty" on the help file - any idea of how much a penalty? This particuler Sohei has an align of 1000 right now

[Mal]

Skill: Meditate (applies to Jedi too?)

When meditating the character will have a boosted mana regeneration factors. This would have to be more powerful then sleeping obviously, as sleeping boosts mana and hp regen.

Some Equipment Ideas...
+1 dam +1int leggings
+1 dam +1int rings
+1 dam +1int bracelet (ml 10)
+2 dam +10 mana bracelet (ml 20)
+2 dam +1int bracelet (ml 20)
+1dam +1str helmet (laurel?)
+1dam +1int neckwear
+1dam +10 mana neckwear
+1str +1int neckwear
+1str +10mana neckwear
Samuri armor
Samuri sword

[Simba]

Preach on brother mal! Sohei ideas from 2003 coming at you...

Spider Climb-would be like magical vestment but instead of str it
would increase dex.

Elemental Armor-like an armor spell but increases saving throw vs
elemental spells like fire, ice, lightning.

Luck-like a bless spell but increases saving throw vs spells

[Mal]

Sohei's spell damage is terribly weak

Sohei's should get unique spells separate from mage - in the simplest point of view, how a fighter-mage would employ magic would be quite different then a mage.

Think..
- Flaming Sword (extra fire damage per round)
- Spiked Armor (damage mobs that hit him)
- Invisiblity (sneak up from behind - perhaps evil only)
- Battle Rage (self only - while sohei enraged cannot concentrate enough to casting magic, increased damage orb-like damage resistance)
- Lightinging Spear (non-combat spell used to start combat, same damage as disintegrate, lower ml, 30 mana cost, this should have same affect as grapple ideally when successful)
- Rage of the Elements (deals a random amount of damage of a random number of elemental types)
- Enflame (sp) burns the mob for 3-5 rounds
- Elemental Pounding - same as pound with 3 round delay but has bonus elemental damage (costs 5 mana)
- Fire Kick (same idea as above, but always fire)
- Honourable Death (if player in group dies with Sohei in the group, player will lose 25% less xp)

Simba ideas (modified)
- Elemental Armor (protects Sohei from elemental spell damage, perhaps armor actually has hit points (50+level*2+10/int over 18) - all elemental damage will be absorbed into armor until it runs out)
- Elemental Shield (reduces 40% of all elemental damage taken by the group - treated as a skill similar to group enlightment - so if sohei leaves/dies you lose it) -- note: Death Magic, such as Word of Death, is not elemental damage
- Spider Climb - nice idea!

[Mal]

I also like the idea of 'Auras' (semi-borrowing from another game)

You can only have one particular aura around you at any given time, so you must choose.

Some examples might be:
+1dam +10hp (Aura of Combat Readiness)
+1str +1int (Aura of Might)
+1int +10mana (Aura of Power)
+1dex +10hp regen (Aura of Defense)
+1str +1dex..

I'll have to read over Sohei skills/spells in more detail but I noticed last night...
- Waterwalk (level 24) -- who are we kidding?

Replace waterwalk with magical vestment/Spider climb.

Add a spell that makes a mob weaker against sohei spells.

Aaron

[Simba]

yes, lets use that nice elemental proc that was put in years ago. how about some water based attacks? geyser on land, maybe something like a tidal wave attack when you're on water?

[Mal]

Soheis are warrior/clerics with more emphysis on warrior, on jedi they were made to be more warrior/mages as we already have paladins.

looted ideas from sohei skills/spells online...
- Iron Will /Faith (natural resistance to magic)
- Divine Whirlwind (berserk that does 2x hit damage + 1d6 or 1d4 per point of strength - I like making it non-combat)
- Lasting Breath (similar to ranger, can live with -hp)


1. I like the idea of taking shocking grasp (or burning hands) and adding it to pound for a sohei. They would uniquely have a mana costing skill/spell combination. Cost would be same as shocking grasp or burning hands mana with 3 round delay - damage dealt would be same as pound+spell total.

2. I like the idea of having a non-combat spell/skill acting like a 2-round grapple. This would make sohei's one of the more ideal combat starters in eq groups instead of bash/rescue/grapple.

3. Make disintegrate same damage as mage but cost an additional 10 mana for sohei.

4. Detonate - completely destroys an object on the ground, injuring all mobs in the room based on int & weight of item detonated.

5. Recharge - casting this spell on a wand will recharge 1-3 charges based on int. Note: wand cannot be fully used otherwise it cannot be recharged.

6. Create Spring - creates a !take fountain in the room that will disappear, double duration of a inner gate spell.

7. Invigorate - adds dexterity / increases max moves of target for duration of spell.

8. Chain lightning - same damage as lightning bolt but hits all mobs in room.

9. Double hit - same as warrior except the second hit will be from fist, not weapon, so no damage dice.

[Dank]

Looking through the great pile of suggestions above, I did see one consistent theme that made some sense -- allow Sohei's a pair of castable buffs that would increase !phys !mag saves on the target by a level/int modifier.

They already get some pretty nifty edrain/mana drain hp/mana assists for soloing, and now have some nice benefits for group xp.

Adding those high level buffs (29/30?) would make Soheis another in-demand buffer besides Bards and Clerics.

Trade Soheis anyone?