An Idea for a New Remort-Only Class

[Antessima]

Funny the things you think of while driving down lonely highways at 2 o'clock in the morning.

I've thought for a while that there is a class of spells and skills that is missing on JediMUD. Some other muds take stabs at this group, but I've not played any others enough to really get an idea of what they consider this group to be.

I've also thought that the current definition of a mage in JediMUD was rather haphazard, and that they didn't really have a lot of options in terms of focus for developing the character. You have a wide variety of offensive spells that really don't follow much of a pattern except that they all hurt the mob you're attacking. So I said, hey, I can help change that.

So I'm proposing a class of psionic magic users. My vision of this class is more specific as to the non-divine nature of a mage, with this class relying solely on themselves, even rebelling against deities. Unlike other classes, I think this one should be most effective with a neutral alignment, because this would signify a distaste for both good and evil, relying solely on oneself for power and guidance. They should use the power of their minds for both offensive and defensive purposes, with a thought for ways to do it without the spell causing damage itself. (See later in this post for details)

I think this class should rely even more heavily on mana than the current class of mages does, with increasingly frail bodies, using their spells to ward off physical damage. I would envision a perfect psionicist to have a maximum possible level of 8/20/1, compared to 9 or 10/18/1 and 11/17/1 for mages and clerics, respectively. Being self-empowered by nature, they do not rely on summoning or charming creatures for their uses, but can force some creatures to perform their will when necessary. Having delved into the concept of divinity enough to know its weaknesses, they are nearly divine themselves, having the power to bend even the fabric of reality if they have developed the mental strength to do so.

As I have now mentioned twice, I would like such a class to be able to cast spells affecting reality that do not directly cause any damage to mobs. Say, for instance, that our friendly prototype psionicist casts 'alter reality'. Now he is in absolute control of his environment and the events that may take place. He chooses to enter a room with a mob in it. In order for the mob to attack him, the mob must attempt to resist the altered reality. This becomes a battle of wills between the mob and the psionicist, where the psionicist is attempting to perform a secondary spell/skill, such as 'bind', to bring the mob under control. The mob is attempting to overcome the psionicist, which is shown through the monster attempting to save versus the secondary spell, while uttering incantations or something that cause the psionicist to use more mana to maintain the altered reality. If the psionicist can successfully 'bind' the mob, he is now in control of it for a period of time to be determined by such things as his intelligence or the inverse of the amount of mana the mob caused him to use. However, if the mob successfully breaks his control on reality, well, there could be some strange noises, some blood, and a corpse. You get the picture. Stuff that the psionicist could do while he has control of reality - cast spells that would reduce the mob's damage roll, force the mob to do things like sleep ('force Siawyn sleep', etc), and possibly even *gasp* prevent certain special procs from triggering. (This could be used in some fashion to be the long-dreamt-of way to counter entropy spells). Maintaining control of reality should be some sort of time-related mana drain, so that eventually the psionicist must release his control in order to perform other things. Exceptional regen or stats may lower the speed of the drain.

There are other things that a psionicist could do. I've played another mud where you could learn spells called thoughtstab and brain thrash, which are perfect ideas of what sort of offensive spells a psionicist could have. It's a whole other world of thinking (heh) as to how you could enable a class using the powers of the mind as opposed to our current smattering of spells for mages.

So, yeah, that's my big idea. Feel free to comment constructively at will, or to flame or kudos without a point at risk of excessive frobbing

[farbekrieg]

I will be open about the fact I have never liked any implementation of the psionist class Ive encountered, they have always come off as a branch of the mage tree I never liked playing, always too restricted and keyholed to filling a very specific party need that I do not need.

Since I have lumped psionists in with mages I would like to take this oppertunity to say that if a psionist class is implemented and the mage class is left alone, the mage class will remain 'broken' being extremely easy to level, but very ineffectual (speaking to the 1 mage and not the squad issue) against higher end mobs) due to inane implementation of resistences at jedi.

Further from your description of them you want psionists to be another Direct Damage/Pet class which is how to best define mages atm, and simply changing the name of mage spells I doubt will go far in fixing the class. Particularly while magical fire and mental spells are treated by the game in the same 'magic way'. (read resistencies issues)

Dont get me wrong I would love to a mage remort class, but as you define it I imagine it would be an unbalancing effect to nullify entropy or lowering hand damage, because a hand damage lowering affect combined with slow hopelessness poison blind curse web fumble etc makes even the mightiest mobs mincemeat so you would have to complicate the current flags with stacking issues. Seeing as proc prevention is the reason ninjas were castrated introducing more anti proc firing seems unlikely.

Id like to see a more indepth explanation of how you wish to see the psionist act within the confines of the jedi universe outside of 'charm' and 'sleep' that already exist and are blatantly abused (along with sleep/backstab but another ball of wax).

Perhaps a description of spells and their effects. How would the psionist compare in damage spells to clerics and mages, how would they compare to bards, rangers, and those with charm as a pet class.

What type of armor restrictions would exist (cloth leather chain plate) what type of melee damage could one expect, healing abilities, what would be a common encounter be like for the psionist (xping both solo and in a group) what would the use of the psionist be in a equipment group give a description of the encounter.

IE Group is Bard/Ranger/Warrior/Cleric/ninja pre battle cleric sancts all blinds mob, bard hopes slows mob, ranger fumbles mob.

Warrior starts fight stands still does nothing, ranger assists watches for entropy rescues/dodges waits for cleric to resanct tank and rescue, bard petrifys/retreats till low on mana then sings illusion, cleric heals sancts, ninja assists looks stupid. (just as an example)

How would alignment change or affect the way the psionist is played?

Why is the psionist better then a mage why are they worse.

Would this altered reality state in which the psionist to exist use a mana per second or per movement.

Personally I think that examination of allowing a psionist to have regeneration rate modifiers to exist in their altered state for their groups would be nifty allowing them to regenerate mana/hp/moves quicker, kind of a bliss through nirvana line of spells that could affect the group while outside of combat. Making a psionist a non combat specialist giving members attack bonuses (hit/damage can briefly give weapon procs to all members of party), as well as provide an ac/resistance boost to the party but once in actual combat kinda weak relying on confusion/stun/misdirect/reflect/damage over time type spells and effects to deal damage.

Thus the psionist is kind of opposite of the mage, instead of a the instant forked lighting in the eye killing the mob as quickly as possible, the psionist would paralyze weaken poison the mob to die a slow death while keeping the mob dazzled and unable to actually hit the psionist. So a battle with a mob (lets say an ancient tree) and the psionist would go like this.

Psionist casts Crystal Cloak (ward absorbs X damage)
Psionist casts Halo of flames (damage shield each time user is hit 7 damage is deducted from total and reflected onto attacker)
Psionist casts <Dazzle> (stuns mob X rounds or until physical damage is inflicted)
Psionist casts Stupor (slows mob X %)
psionist casts Ravage of Time (Does Mental Damage X pts per round for Y rnds)
psionist casts Decay (Disease DOT) (first round of ravage kicks in awakens mob)
Ancient Tree attacks for 40 damage 33 inflicted on ward 7 back on self)

etc.


The problem is images/slow/confusion/inspire have already been given to bards, damage shields do not exist, wards do not exist, pets have been done to death, everyone has sleep. So my vision of the psionist would step on other classes toes and require stacking issues to arise and overall class balance to be instutited before continueing.

But thats just my 2 bits on the psionist.

[Antessima]

Oy veh, where to start, where to start...

First, a small correction: in the original post, I stated in two places that this class should *not* be a direct damage class or rely heavily on pets. Yet somehow you started your third paragraph by stating that I had said the exact opposite. Buy new reading glasses

Anyway, continuing on...you have some excellent ideas. I am of similar mind in saying that I'd kinda like to steer such a class away from the current definition of a mage on Jedi. Mages traditionally rely on incantations to cast spells - your standard 'abracadabra' kinda stuff. A psionicist shouldn't necessarily have to 'cast' anything, or at least not much. Kinda like how bards 'sing', rangers 'scan', and melee classes 'track'. It's an innate ability that doesn't require a magical word. So let me give you a version of a battle between a psionicist and a huge, ancient tree.

psionicist: control reality
tree: resist control
(continues for a little while, draining about 50 mana before the tree capitulates.)
psionicist: bind tree (reduces damroll of tree, or possibly removes one dice from tree's damage dice.)
psionicist: force tree sleep
tree: resist control
(another 30 mana goes down the drain while the psionicist recaptures the tree's mind.)
psionicist: cast 'ward of defense' (a sanc-like spell that reduces damage by 25% and reflects 25%.)
psionicist: attack tree (this would release the psionicist's control on reality)
(They fight.)
During fight, psionicist: brainthrash tree (causes moderate psionic damage to tree, sets tree to stunned position)
psionicist: energy drain tree (or same spell, different name. Why? Because rangers copy most of their spells too.) Note: this energy drain spell will *not* affect align, because it is used as a method of survival, and can only be used in combat.
tree: Ack, I'm dead!


Let's pretend that someone upstairs doesn't like the thought of a class having a reflect damage spell. Okay, well, let's make psionicists much more frail than the other classes (200hp psionicist? Ha!) and then give them a spell or perhaps innate ability to resist physical damage, and a greater save versus magical damage. Both would make sense, given that psionicists must be aware of and in control of their surroundings at all times, so by the time that Mr. Onivel is halfway through his little 'ezis rof no eno siht yrt' incantation, Mr. Psionicist knows what he's going to try, and is prepared to save against it. (Granted, saving vs. Onivel's WoD may be a lost cause - but you get what I'm trying to say.)

There are other spells/skills I envision a psionicist having. Unfortunately, I'm supposed to be working right now, so I can't take the time right *now* to make up a list of them, but I will try to do so tonight and post it on here for critique and suggestions.

As far as armor restrictions, don't expect to see a psionicist walking around with a metal breastplate on or wielding some sword. Their armor of choice would be runic clothing or simple body coverings, such as the current Mystic Robes or the kimono. No Blue Plate, no gilded gold breast plate, no platemail or anything like that. Staff of the Magi? Perhaps. Spider-shaped dagger? Hmm...maybe...but maybe not. Melee damage is only significant when the psionicist directs his concentration towards it; however, his ability to increase his own potency is far more effective than his ability to increase the fighting effectiveness of others. (read: no inspire/aid/psionic combo for other classes)

I'm still thinking through how such a class would interact in a group atmosphere. I'd like to see this become a class that requires active participation, because just typing 'dodge' several times, standing there to get hit, or standing there to karate chop really would be lame. But like I said, still thinking about it.

I just want to get this idea out here for discussion and suggestions. Whatever becomes of this thread would, I imagine, depend upon what we can come up with in terms of ideas. So keep thinking too!

[farbekrieg]

re-read your class definition again and you will see you mention both binding as a form of charm and direct damage spells (at least the last several psionists ive had the displeasure of playing mindstab and brain thrash were treated mostly as direct damage spells).

Reading through your statements you have not completely or even partially thought through the creation of a class, your descriptions are vague and half assed rather then saying how the character would interact within the confines of the jedi enviroment you are working through abstract terms as in how you saw one time at this other muds from a friends sisters mothers dog.

So answer some basic questions. First is your max mana/hp definition. Its rather flakey in that the max gains for the other classes are listed incorrectly. A better way to approach the issue is LESS Hps the mages 5 or 6 but more mana 16-17 (that would be non remorted) but then again both of those are slight so a better example might be your average level 30 psionist will have 100 -120 hps and 500-530 mana.

Next you imply that alignment has some sort of affect of deity worship. This is not the case, alignment is if your character laughs, is indifferant, or helps those suffering and oppressed. Not about deity worship whatsoever

My personal preferance is to define the class with the Chaotic Evil through Lawful Good to help add flavor to the class.

Next you pick primes and a reasonable range for stats to fall. Lets say that Int/Wis are primes but dex is required for planar manipulation as a secondary prime. with resonable stats of str 3-10 int 11-18 wis 11-18 dex 9-18 con 3-10 cha 3-18.

After you pick armor and weapons restrictions. You imply you want cloth only and restrict weapons to simple (ie not complex) 1 handed staves and daggers.

Next pick a skill system. Rangers and bards but have 'differant' ways of teaching rangers with wandering tutors and bards with instruments and colleges. Will psionists have something as simple as masters, or as complex as having to buy a book with missing pages and then collect the pages from differant areas of the realm, or as complex as channelers who must first learn the basic elementals (wind fire earth water divine death planar time etc) and then cast their spells by weaving basic elements together ie
cast '10water 34earth 7life' <target> to make an earth ward?

These are 'special' classes and something as trivial as going to numinus to learn is kind of weak.

What are major spell lines of the class? direct damage, damage over time, damage prevention, Wards, Slows, Debuffs, damage shields, enchantments, stuns, confusions, special combat skills etc. Ie they will have a series of stuns that start as simply making the opponent less effective in combat for X rnds through a stun that will deal some damage as well as dehabilitate the mob for X+y rnds. They will have a haste spells at +25 +33 +50% (giving an extra attack every 4,3,2 rnds). Damage shield that reflects 3,6,9,12. Will they be self only or group affecting spells etc. Will they have single or multiple target spells.

How will the character kill by himself, how will they interact with a group. Please note their already exist several 'solo' classes, what is the overall benefit to jedimud of adding this class. Will this class attract any attention at all, will it have unbalancing effects (mana channel).

Details are important, saying that it will do 'stuff' is vague and unhelpful.

Having answer to the above questions will at least get some consideration, saying hey lets add the monk class cuz he can kick butt and stuff like in kung fu movies and makes heads asplode and shizzle doesnt have any merit.

[farbekrieg]

Lets say for example I wanted a special remort class for warriors called beserker.

First Id like the class to be a dedicated deity based fighting class, who can call on their gods for small tactical advantages in combat. Meaning a good beserker will have certain combat skills an evil one would not, and a nuetral beserker would have access to neither.

Beserkers would get more hps then warriors (lets say 16 base) max mana gain is 3 and max move gain is 10, the majority of beserker skills used in combat will be move based but some 'magical' moves cost mana + moves. The average non remorted beserker at 30 would be near 500 hps and 135ish mana 260 or so moves.

Beserkers are by race and tradition ancestor worshippers, and create towns united under a chief and have a basic at best trade and barter system created. Beserkers travel far and wide and easily adopt other races gods and attributes into their culture. But in the end brute strength is their prime attribute with constitution as a second. Beserker free time is spent pillaging and drinking.

Beserkers are restricted to cloth and leather armor, but can master any type of weapon, however the traditions of the zerks have taught them that shields are a tool of the coward, and they are eschewed. Beserkers also are ritualistic and many rituals require some sort of alcohol to help set off their characterstic frenzies and rages.Stats fall generally in 13-18/100 str 3-10 int 3-10 wis 10-18 dex 11-18 3-9 cha.

Bezerker have a line of spells and for simplicities sake will be designated as S (self only) T (target) G (group) P (passive). Beserkers also learn 'differently'. Instead of practicing to learn new skills they gain knowledge from their fallen enemies, hence many zerker skills will remain hidden until they are unlocked by killing a certain number of a given enemy type.

Zerks can only increase their profenciency in a given skill by use up to their intelligence cap + stat bonuses (each skill has a proficiency bonus tied to a given attribute). Skill ups are possible each time the skill is used and a % chance based on int.

Zerks will start off with the following skills at level 1.

Zerker Weapon skills all start at 5% meaning for an event to occur procedure event is multiplied by skill level. Hence a warrior with 5% skill with Daggers has 5% + a dex mod chance of causing a bleeding wound so with a dex of lets say 19 the chances would be (.05 * (.05 + .06)) = .0055 (roughly) 5.5%

Swords and Axes (slash weapons) 4% chance of crippling blow (large amount of extra damage dealt) + str mod
Daggers (pierce) 4% chance of bleeding wound (extra damage over time for X rnds) + dex mod
Maces (crush/blast) 4% chance of stunning blow (slow X rnds + small amount of extra damage)

Each type of weapon attack can be upgrade if they get the killing blow on a specific mob type (swords and axes knights and dwarves such seiged/ravenna/camelot/etc) thieves for daggers, clerics for maces.

At Advanced of any given type they get a + to hitroll modifier and better % of special hits

and at expert they get a damage bonus and a 10% + dex chance to double hit with primary.

space does not allow full descripts of spells/skills and i did not list skills used against specific types of monsters for bonuses, but just as a possible skill set might include

3 Feast of the Fallen (s) eat corpses to regen hp/moves con based
4 Innate Armor (p) dex based
5 Bloodlust (s) + dam -ac/hitr no flee str
6 Savage Blade extra attack 0 rnd delay (str)
7 Rallying Cry +ac/hitr/max hp char
8 Racial Enemy (p) wis based
9 Duel Wield dex based
10 Parry (p) dex based
10 Force door T str
11 Ripposte (p) dex
12 Cleave (t) str
13 Sword of the Wind (s) magic attack
14 Protector (t) take 1/3 damage for target wis
14 Axe of Destruction (area) axe required str
15 Fencing (p) (ac bonus using sword) dex
15 Hungering blade (s) special hits give a % life to zerker wis
16 Power Cleave (p) when cleave succeeds chance of power cleave firing str
17 Morale (G) AC/HP/Restiance buff charisma
17 doom (T) ac/rests/hitr debuff (combat) wis
18 Crush extra mace attack dex
19 Call of Bwahn (S) ac/hp buff (combat) wis
20 Cripple (T) resists ac debuff (combat) dex
21 Vorpal Sword (P) chance of beheading (max mob level 23) dex
22 Onslaught (T) magical knockdown/extra damage str
23 Frenzy (t) extra damage for X rnds str
24 Peace (g) increase hp/move regen wis
25 Rage (s) triggers extra combo attacks str
25 Call of the Ancients (s)
26 Battle Fury
27 Leap
28 Precision/Wicked Combination
29 Presence of the Warlord
30 Battle Tactics

[Antessima]

Impressive, Farb.

Counting doublespaces, you managed to waste 134 lines of text. Not everybody can do that with such ease!

Your 2nd reply did not present any new questions or arguments, unless you consider deriding me for not having even partially thought out this class a new argument. Which it would be, considering that just by posting a thread and saying the word 'psionicist' counts as partially thinking through a new class. Despiccable.

You insisted that this would be another charmie/direct damage class. Care to tell me how many of the other mana-using classes have direct damage spells? I'll save you the time - all of them do. From Bards, who have 1 direct damage spell, to mages, who subsist on practically nothing but direct damage spells, every single magical class in the game uses these kinds of spells to some extent. And as far as using altered reality to bind and force a mob to do something, calling that nothing more than charming requires a considerable stretch of the imagination, since I never once said anything about forcing the mob to follow you or to attack other mobs. In fact, did I not say that combat would break the psionicists control over such things?

Moreover, you called my thoughts about this class 'half-assed', 'vague' 'abstractions'. Congratulations again on correctly identifying an idea as abstract! I've mentioned twice now that I expected this thread to draw ideas about the class, not as a grand forum where I deliver a sermon about my prophetic, all-knowing vision about what a psionicist will be in JediMUD. Did I have a complete spell and skill list in hand when I decided to say 'Hey, I think this would be a neat new class to have, here's some thoughts about it, what do you think?' Of course not. I said that I hoped that the path of this discussion would develop a solid idea about what a psionicist class would be like on Jedi.

So please, if you must call names and deride people to feel good and big, go find a nice pasture filled with manure and do it to cows. They care about your opinions about as much as I do now.

----------------------------------------------------------

However, I also take your insults as a challenge, so I'm going to answer point-by-point every major question you brought up about this class as I view them. Hopefully someone with some constructive input will take a look and offer up some new ideas.

1. You expressed concern about a damage-reducing spell becoming overkill when stacked with other spells. Let me ask you something - how often do you see a group - ANY group - stack more than 3 or possibly 4 debuffing spells on a mob? It's INCREDIBLY rare to see it happen, because it's generally considered a waste of mana, and mobs who would be powerful enough to warrant every debuff in the book are likely to still decimate players who aren't watchful. I *highly* doubt that a psionicist using his powers to decrease a mob's ability to fight or inflict damage would create any sort of unbalancing. If it would, then maybe we should get rid of some of the current debuffs. Like blind and fumble, for instance. How is a mob supposed to heal himself or hit you if he's blind and has his qhealing restricted? *DUH*

2. You were certain that having a spell or skill to counter entropy would be disallowed due to unbalance. Get yourself a group of 2 warriors, a ninja, and a cleric, and go kill Jupiter. If you can't figure out how to prevent him from firing off area spells, entropies, and qheals, you aren't worth your sword.

3. Twice now you've insisted on hearing how a psionicist interacts with the JediMUD environment. This, to me, is an awfully vague question. Does not interaction include the casting of spells before, during, and after battle constitute the overwhelming majority of a player's interaction with the game? It seems to me that the only possible way to define an answer to such a silly question would be to work at defining a skill set.

4. Which, oddly enough, you've also brought up a few times. How redundant. Just so you don't feel a need to whine up a new storm, I'm anticipating posting a full listing of spells for levels 1-30 plus descriptions for each spell on my personal site within the next day or two to save on reading space in this thread. I'll post a link when it's ready.

5. I'm a little confused about your insistence that alignment has nothing to do with deity worship. My question to you is, when is the last time you've played a cleric, mage, paladin, or antipaladin? The latter two are defined as worshipping opposing deities, with that fact being directly represented by their respective alignments. What's more, the in-game description of a cleric (not to mention some of their spells) makes direct references to their divinely-inspired nature. Mages also imply the existence of deities being a part of class interactions by stating that mages are limited in their spellcasting portfolio because they do not rely on divine assistance.

So, allow me to spell out my rationale for making neutrality the ideal alignment for a psionicist. First, as I've mentioned before, a psionicist draws his power from within and not without. This detaches him from seeking to please a deity by his actions, because he does not rely on the deity for aid. However, because of the depth of their research and meditation, psionicists have become acutely aware of the existence of polarized divine beings. Since self-empowerment tends to be packaged with large egos, psionicists see deities of both good and evil to be enemies, and pride provokes them to avoid classification as either good or evil, lest their focus be broken through attention to a god-figure. Because of this, they seek to be neutral, and are most effective when unaffected by good or evil. As far as your definition of good/neutral/evil goes, psionicists, being self-seeking, will not laugh at the suffering nor help them because they are suffering, but will judge the situation according to their own purposes, and act accordingly, without regard to ethical or moral implications or demands.

6. I'm not entirely in favor of this class having a spell or skill that allows them to increase either their own regen rates or that of their group, simply because of the uproar that would cause among those who are already intensely debating our current regen system. I say not entirely because I think that psionicists should regen mana at a higher rate than other classes (which is already implemented).

---continued in next post---

[Antessima]

---continuing on---

7. You want an idea about max gains. Gee, specifically defining the max gains of a 7-remort char compared to other classes sure was flaky and non-specific! I've already indicated this, but I'll say it again: psionicists will have fewer hitpoints and greater mana than any other class. The differences will naturally not be more than a point or two compared to the next class on the list, mages, so pull out your pocket calculator and do the math as to what those max gains would be.

8. What would be the most important stats for a psionicist? Obviously, INT is going to be the most important, being the most direct measurement of brainpower. WIS will also be highly important, as it lends definition to the things the psionicist's powerful mind perceives. I do not anticipate any other stats to be of high importance, though there may be applications for CHA or DEX.

9. I discussed armor and weapon restrictions in my 2nd post, but I'll repeat it all here for posterity. Psionicists will be restricted to cloth armor only, and single-handed weapons aren't a bad idea either. Something about having the frailest body in the game makes it hard to envision a psionicist wielding a longsword or a mace.

----------------------------------------------------

That pretty much concludes the answers to your biggest questions. I wish you hadn't taken the liberty of clogging this thread up with so much rubbish posting (in fact, I wish you'd remove the *pointless* post about berserkers entirely), and I wish you'd kept to constructive comments and not pathetic attempts at brow-beating. If you come up with a new idea, feel free to post it, but please, don't waste anyone's time with more senseless banter.

I think I'm going to start a low-farb diet for my New Year's resolution. Just as too many carbs can be bad for your health, I'm sure psych doctors would agree that too many farbs aren't great either

[farbekrieg]

Feel free to comment constructively at will, or to flame or kudos without a point at risk of excessive frobbing

Ok I did that. to which you responded

think I'm going to start a low-farb diet

Time to call the WAAAAAAH-bulance, if you dont want honest feedback on your half baked ideas dont ask for them, and dont cry about it when ya do get it. There are people here who have asked for feedback and gotten none, Im doing you a service, perhaps one day you will write a proposal that is well thought out and complete, but I doubt it, but I claim credit if you do.

unless you consider deriding me for not having even partially thought out this class a new argument.

seemed pretty obvious I do. Sides psionics are not a new class, seen them in many games and muds, and as aforementioned not impressed. Its not like you own the psionic class, rather doing your own take on them, but without offering any information beyond the basic description of the psionist. I could copy and paste from an aDND book and come up with the same.. hooray

Twice now you've insisted on hearing how a psionicist interacts with the JediMUD environment. This, to me, is an awfully vague question. Does not interaction include the casting of spells before, during, and after battle constitute the overwhelming majority of a player's interaction with the game? It seems to me that the only possible way to define an answer to such a silly question would be to work at defining a skill set.

Awfully Vague? No its asking for specific details, the opposite of vague, ya know exact. I want to know what the psionic class would bring to jedimud table that is new and will help make it a more enjoyable experience. Would it be so simple as to just write new spells, or would the game mechanics have to be changed, changing the notion of how combat is done. Seeing as there is only one coder, writing new spells would be simple, re-writing th combat system would be a back burner for several years issue.

Maybe you missed my examples, oh wait you already responded to them, and said you had no idea about the other one.

So im sure you didnt misunderstand the question, rather you are befuddled on how to answer, which if i remember right is a psionic spell so maybe you were attacked by one and dont remember?

Me I gave my take on what I would think they should be, which doesnt match the ideal definition of a psionic. So before you throw another tantrum about how the big meanie is stomping on your ideas, get an idea first mmmkay.

There has been no call for half assed remort character classes (or even full assed ones) from the admin, So if you are going to present a class for consideration get yer poop together first.

I mean why barge into the board room and say you have a super idea about a new product called 'spetzco' you will tell them about later, after you have thought about it.

Get yourself a group of 2 warriors, a ninja, and a cleric, and go kill Jupiter.

Ive killed jupes solo, ive killed jupes duo and ive killed jupes with a warrior ninja and cleric, what more do I need to do with that cupcake? My point is jupes is already insanely easy to beat and removing entropy means more idiots can kill him solo, dumbing the mud down even further, the point so many people have already made is they want MORE difficult not less, but rather then make existing stuff harder, create new harder content.

I'll post a link when it's ready

Id like to re-iterate that I have seen psionist classes and dont like them, seeing as they tend to be a mage/cleric blend having the following characteristic spell lines DD AE slow fly sanct strength locate enchant ward rune identify charm and heal. Making it a god class cleric in silk tights.

If your spell list looks like the following you have the originality of a shoe insert, and have created a broken unbalanced class

Direct Damage Spells Psionic Feedback, whiplash, mind twist, mindstab, combat mind, thought throw, brainbuster, blast, or area affects thought pulse brain storm, mind shout, pyrokinetic storm etc some of these spells I have seen have added affects of lowering resitancies/slow/stun but over all tend to be on par with mage damage spells except with better side effects.

Enchancement spells
- Sanctuary Type spells like mental shield, ignore pain, pyshic surge, pyschic mist
- Aid/armor type spells like physical enchancement, thought shield, ectoplasm shield etc, telekinetic shield
- Strength spells (strength, enhanced str, delusions of granduer, adreniline control)

Heal Spells pychic healing, mental reconstruction, mental restoration, life drain, energy drain, mana drain

Invis either shadow plane walk ectoplasmic form vanish

Locate Object type spell Scry/second or great sight/

Debuff/stun spells

Fly/waterwalk levitate

Identify Type spells

Even enchant spells

Charm Spells (dominate, hypnosis, bind)

to bind and force a mob to do something, calling that nothing more than charming requires a considerable stretch of the imagination

I suppose I could call it suggest but that skill got nerfed for being too powerful, now it just sucks. Either way binding and forcing a mob to do something has been done, if thats your class defining skill you have failed at any shot of uniqueness.

I'm a little confused about your insistence that alignment has nothing to do with deity worship.

You confuse easily read this slowly and try not to move your mouth as you read.

On alignment. If you havent noticed alignment has been effectively stripped from the paladin class (pray and peity is it? i forget), and jedi classes are defined simply as jedi, reguardless if they want to call themselves sith lord or jedi master. They bow to no respective person rather to codes of conduct. Even then they are allowed to choose to adhere as strictly to them as they wish. Im sure some more knowledge jedite could rattle off jedi and sith code.

All in all jedimud is deityless as it is, and alignment reflects the inner feelings of the players, if they baseless evil who just like to kill children or the more destructive manipulators who pass as being well behaved citizens but plot the destruction of kingdoms.

Tell me where deity worship comes into play on jedi in any practical sense. Jedis choose not to use certain powers for they are viewed as weak or a path to the dark side.

Paladins must refrain from the rampant slaughter of children to appease an unnamed deity, but must they perform tasks, or not kill specific mobs (citizens, statues, prophets, even the children wont someone please think of the children?) The answer is no of course not you can kill whoever when ya like so long as you stay 1 kill better on the pal or anti side. There is no possible way for a Pal or Anti to fall to other side during game play (remorting aside) and their punishment is to kill a few gobs or adepts to get back in good standing. Saying that is an enforcement of deities is laughable.

Hell in your better written fantasy books often Paladins or Antis do considerable more damage to their own cause then the other due to a 'skewed' view they hold about something. Often your best sith are fallen jedi. There are paladins who have remorted anti and vice versa, then switched back again, what kind of deity system would allow that?

If there is a deity sytem on jedi its a trava-sham-ocery.

how often do you see a group - ANY group - stack more than 3 or possibly 4 debuffing spells on a mob?

Slow, Hope, Fumble, blind on almost ANY mob that loads good equipment. Usually my groups would throw Rage/Curse/web/posion/petrify (chasing down auggies meanie ass sucks). But then we loaded every item in game we wanted outside of doom is fairly inconsequential to such a big game hunter as yourself?

Or maybe you should group more. And find you can kill jupes with fewer then 4 people. Perhaps if you debuffed more then 3 spells ya would have a better shot.

What would be the most important stats for a psionicist? Obviously, INT is going to be the most important, being the most direct measurement of brainpower. WIS will also be highly important, as it lends definition to the things the psionicist's powerful mind perceives. I do not anticipate any other stats to be of high importance, though there may be applications for CHA or DEX.

Let me know what you come up with after you think about this, because obviously you have given it next to no thought. Outside of spoogeing yourself when you thought you could seriously introduce some class you saw at this other mud and wanted to port over. /golf clap man golf clap

I discussed armor and weapon restrictions in my 2nd post

Lets see what well thought out answer you came up with

Their armor of choice would be runic clothing or simple body coverings, such as the current Mystic Robes or the kimono. No Blue Plate, no gilded gold breast plate, no platemail or anything like that. Staff of the Magi? Perhaps. Spider-shaped dagger? Hmm...maybe...but maybe not.

Waffle waffle waffle waffle. You say they cant wear plate fine, but what of chain and leather? As for weapons you did a "perhaps maybe i dont know." You call that an answer? Thats more waffling then john kerry at the waffle house talking religion. So your answer I boil down to maybe versus maybe not. GREAT man obviously that is the most concise and complete answer EVAH!

I wish you hadn't taken the liberty of clogging this thread up with so much rubbish posting

I feel the same about you buckwheat. Mahabba flabba magabba.

[Ciara]

Ok. Since this thread which may have had some interesting ideas in it at one point has degenerated into nothing of any use, I'm locking it. If you want to have an intelligent discourse on this subject you may start a new thread.