Class/magic: non-casters and hybrids

[Ighalli]

I still like picking one of the enemy monsters that are actually intimidating:
Black knight
Death knight

[Nick]

My current favourites are blackguard and marauder.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

My current favourites are blackguard and marauder.

I still really like Corsair, as it is thematic with Tolkien.

[Gwarl]

I like Blackguard and Corsair.

So, the way I see the archetype, a comparison to paladins is due. Paladins get strong melee, second only to a warrior, and lots of powerful healing/evil smiting abilities besides. They pay for it with poor dungeoneering skills.

I would see the blackguard making the same tradeoff asthe paladin, except instead of combining strong melee with protection and healing, they combine it with debuff spells and damage spells good enough to be competitive with missile weapons.

Since healing and utility spells (detection/teleportation etc) probably help keep @ alive more than offensive power does, this setup should probably make the class more difficult to actually win with as a paladin, but hopefully with deceptive moments of glory when @ is facing down a horde of enemies.

[Philip]

Corsair implies pirate. Somehow, that gave me the idea of giving the class very good mobility (shadowdancer type) as part of their gimmick. Spells that do AoE damage or debuff around you and phase you away, spells that enhance a melee attack and also move you to a selected monster, maybe a buff (or a transformation, I guess) that makes walking extremely cheap. Either that or some kind of way to heal by murdering folks.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Corsair implies pirate.

As described in the lotr.wikia.com :

The Corsairs of Umbar are a race of Men, or specifically of corrupted Númenóreans, living in Middle-earth, known for their piracy of ships along the coasts of Gondor.

Umbar was an old Númenórean haven settled by the King's Men, a proud faction loyal to the King and opposed to the divine authority of the Valar.

After the downfall of Númenor, the Umbar settlers further descended into evil, and were called the Black Númenóreans. They took to pillaging and piracy along the coasts of Gondor, but in TA 933 Umbar was conquered by Gondor; however Umbar was besieged by the Black Númenóreans and Haradrim until TA 1050, when the siege was over after being defeated by King Hyarmendacil I of Gondor.

During the Kin-strife, the defeated rebels of Gondor fled to Umbar, being called Corsairs, most of them being Dúnedain. At this time Umbar became the hated enemy of Gondor, from TA 1448 to TA 1810. Over time these sailors drew to their number various outlaws and brigands from outlying settlements surrounding the Anduin, and they took to raiding along the southern coast of Gondor, intercepting merchant vessels and abducting women to bolster their dissident community. They were also slavers and would often seize a ship's crew along with her cargo; if any resisted, they would be thrown overboard.

In TA 1810 Gondor retook Umbar, but shortly after, in TA 1846, Umbar was lost to Haradrim and new Corsairs emerged. Since then and by the time of the War of the Ring, the Corsairs had mixed with the Southrons, becoming a mixed people where Númenórean blood was mostly gone.

During the War of the Ring at the time of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, a Corsair fleet on route to Harlond after overrunning Pelargir with intentions of further raids on Gondor and to aid the forces of Mordor in the battle. Aragorn, with the help of the Grey Company, Legolas, Gimli, and the Army of the Dead, drove the Corsairs off and captured their ships and rowed them to Minas Tirith to relieve the siege of the city. In that battle, the Dead fulfilled their oath to Isildur and were finally able to rest in peace.

[Nick]

So, the way I see the archetype, a comparison to paladins is due. Paladins get strong melee, second only to a warrior, and lots of powerful healing/evil smiting abilities besides. They pay for it with poor dungeoneering skills.

I would see the blackguard making the same tradeoff as the paladin, except instead of combining strong melee with protection and healing, they combine it with debuff spells and damage spells good enough to be competitive with missile weapons.

Since healing and utility spells (detection/teleportation etc) probably help keep @ alive more than offensive power does, this setup should probably make the class more difficult to actually win with as a paladin, but hopefully with deceptive moments of glory when @ is facing down a horde of enemies.

This is pretty close to how I'm thinking of it at the moment, especially the comparison with paladins.

So far my main idea for their magic is that they get to power up their melee a lot, but at a risk - costing HP, potential damage to stats, other side effects like aggravation. Aside from that they should get fear, stun, paralysis and disenchantment effects on monsters and some of the stuff Philip talks about like getting to a target monster quickly. I'd probably rather give buff spells for ranged combat rather than direct damage spells - maybe they should be good at hurling stuff.

I still really like Corsair, as it is thematic with Tolkien.

I agree; my reservation is that it's more like a race, and is only one of a few possible sources (others including men of Carn Dum, etc).

[Pete Mack]

Evil aligned warrior possibilities:
Dunlending agent
blackguard
black knight
death knight
Dark Captain
Dark Lord

[Gwarl]

For adjective Knight type names I'd like to offer Dread Knight.

[Derakon]

I suggest we just call them Bad Guys.

[Gwarl]

I think heal on kills is a bit too hengband-y for V, even experimental new V. But it would be interesting to gain a power-up on kills. 1d(monsterlevel) SP for instance could sustain offensive spellcasting - as long as you keep killing. But perhaps randonly selected from other buffs like blessing, heroism, regeneration, short duration speed etc - encouraging our doomed warrior to continue pursuing his fate rather than using ?teleport like he ought.

[Nick]

I think heal on kills is a bit too hengband-y for V, even experimental new V. But it would be interesting to gain a power-up on kills. 1d(monsterlevel) SP for instance could sustain offensive spellcasting - as long as you keep killing. But perhaps randonly selected from other buffs like blessing, heroism, regeneration, short duration speed etc - encouraging our doomed warrior to continue pursuing his fate rather than using ?teleport like he ought.

You appear to have been reading my mind

[Gwarl]

Oh, if you are open to inspiration from other variants, check out the Darkslayer (and Crusader) class from Multiband if you aren't familiar, it has some interesting mechanics. You don't have to play one but the mechanics are documented in the helpfiles.

[wobbly]

Can we decouple the ranger/archer bonus from the bow. It's a nice fit for elfs/humans but a slinger is a nicer feel on a hobbit & I'd prefer a crossbow when playing a gnome/dwarf.

Sorry for self quote but looking through the books, any mention of hobbits & wars is always archers so I guess bows are more authentic.

[jevansau]

Played through a Dunadan Ranger with randarts. Thoughts:
VERY different to previous versions.

Basically only seriously used a missile weapon (sling briefly then bow) for the early to early mid game, and to take out Sauron. Useful slay/branded ammo is scarce, and missile damage much lower than melee (< half ).
Sauron was an exception because I found a x4, +27 damage, acid branding bow on L99 (along with the one ring). With arrows of wounding this was just better than any melee I had without aggravating. Still went back to melee for Morgoth using the one.

The spells in book 1 are all useful throughout, as are haste and herbal healing.
I'd like to know more about what decoy does, because I never managed to find a good use for it in practice. Cover tracks could be useful, but I think I only benefited from it once. By the time I found the book, I had superb stealth, and it only went up from there.

On the whole, the ranger plays as a slightly inferior rogue without the stealing. They both have different subsets of the useful spells, though the holes are mostly easier to fill for the rogue (haste excepted). Having Wisdom as the spell stat makes the traditional races less suitable, although running out of mana ceases to be a problem quite early.

If you want them to have more of a different feel, need to decide what their strengths should be.
If they are meant to be primarily archers, they need to be able to do more damage that way, or be safer fighting at range, or both. I'd prefer the former because the latter leads to tedium.

Cutting extra shots, glyph, ammo improving/ branding all make archery less attractive.
I can see and approve of the nerfing of extra shots, but I think you either need to give a bit more - maybe +1 per 5 levels, or maybe give a might bonus as well.
Also, damage seems to be balanced assuming the availability of branded ammo. For whatever reason, useful ammo is very rare. I saw no slay evil or holy might ammunition for anything, and one stack of acid branded arrows.
Either base damage needs to be higher, or good slay/branded ammo needs to be much more common, or there needs to be a way to create it. Thematically, giving Rangers poison branding at some level would also be appropriate.

While ranger was my favorite class, so far it is my least under the new stream. Mind you, I have found the other new classes to be improvements over the originals. I haven't tried a blackguard or warrior yet, but have tried the others.

On a side note, the max depths (and maybe min depths, although that is more controversial) for randarts should reflect their relative strength within their type (weapon, armour, shield, cloak, crown/helmet, light, amulet, ring, launcher, gloves). This is primarily a problem for lights.
Also, lights seem heavily biased to torches, with star's and arkenstones being very rare. I don't know how the type is selected now, but maybe even selection with no more than one of any type would be a good minimum. This would be weaker on average than standarts, but not as bad as now.