Need ideas for... umm.. lots of stuff.

[Therem Harth]

In between Real Life stuff I'm still experimenting with my T2 fork. I think I've got the GUI situation under control (GTK2 interface works now), and I want to add lots of interesting and hopefully-not-too-unbalanced stuff, but I'm running out of ideas. I need stuff for all areas of the game - races and classes, items/ego types/artifacts, monsters, spells and magic realms... If you have any bright ideas, please mention them.

What I've got planned so far...

Classes.
- Cryomancer: discussed on the the ToME forums. Ice-mages, with powerful buffs and a couple utility spells; but no offensive spells, or intrinsic means of escaping a bad situation. I'm not sure this is exactly what I want in them though; I was thinking maybe something a little more... epic.

- Poisonmaster: a more magically apt Rogue subclass, with a realm containing all manner of poison- and acid-related spells. I'm thinking lots of offense, and maybe some buffs with unusual side effects.

- Hunter: Archer subclass, with abilities similar to Mindcraft: stun prey, detection, heroism, that sort of thing. Maybe a spell to follow the last teleport (a la Tracker). Don't want to use actual Mindcraft for this (see below).

- Chaos-mage: another type of glass cannon. Has uberspells like Force Beam, Rocket Ball, and Inertia Meteors, which all do exactly what they sound like. But every point of Chaos-magic reduces the character's armor class by ten points.

Other plans: I kind of want to get rid of Mindcraft and replace it with Music for Priests (and make that powerful enough to actually be usable).

Races

- Bullywug: strong, smart aquatic humanoids, who resist cold and can breath underwater. But they have poor constitution and hit dice, and and make Orcs look pretty.

(No, can't think of any others... Yet.)

Artifacts

- The large metal boomerang 'Plunderbird': I've made boomerangs useful (though by all rights they shouldn't be), so I want more boomerang artifacts. This one is from Umbar or thereabouts, and best suited to illiterate piratical types; it offers resistance, brands, and auras for fire and electricity, produces an antimagic shell, and drains experience and spell points.

(Again, running a bit short of ideas here. Same for ordinary/ego items.)

Monsters

- Spawn of Ungoliant: a spider somewhere between Ungoliant and Shelob in power. Probably should have darkness breath, and appear in groups.

- Wolf of Angband: a descendant of Carcharoth, with all kinds of nasty breath attacks. Should appear with escorts (which in Angband would probably mean Hellhounds).

- Mother Spider (unique): the most powerful of Ungoliant's daughters, who Morgoth is hiding on level 127 of Angband. Aside from melee, she can breath disintegration and summon kin. Nice, huh?

As you can see though, I don't have a whole lot here, so I'd be grateful for any additional stuff.

[ekolis]

Cryomancers get no attack or escape spells? That sounds... difficult! No "icicle" spell to stab monsters, or "hibernation" spell to slow them down?

Poisonmaster seems like a slightly silly name... how about Assassin?

[Therem Harth]

Cryomancers get no attack or escape spells? That sounds... difficult! No "icicle" spell to stab monsters, or "hibernation" spell to slow them down?

They get buffs instead. Ice armor, ice encased weapon, stuff like that. Does seem a bit silly though; probably better to have them conjuring glaciers and stuff. (Think Jaghut if you've read Steven Erickson.)

Poisonmaster seems like a slightly silly name... how about Assassin?

Already taken in T2.

[Therem Harth]

FWIW I've updated Priests to use Music instead of Mindcraft (except the Dark-priest who still uses Necromancy). I've also removed the pval requirement and powered up some of the Music spells a little, most of those that affect monsters now cause damage as well. Some may need to be nerfed again, we'll see... But anyway Mindcraft has been removed.

[Therem Harth]

I forgot to mention dungeons!

One idea I got was a reef where a ship from Umbar was wrecked. It would be fairly shallow, all random/destroyed levels (like Angband or Moria but with water), and with a lichified Corsair captain at the bottom. How's that sound?

[ghengiz]

I forgot to mention dungeons!

One idea I got was a reef where a ship from Umbar was wrecked. It would be fairly shallow, all random/destroyed levels (like Angband or Moria but with water), and with a lichified Corsair captain at the bottom. How's that sound?

Arrrhhh! pirateband
AFAIK no roguelike has already taken this theme...sounds fun!

edit: all the other changes you are thinking of, could fit in a wilderness: imagine, you're a pirate or whatever, and travel between islands (dungeons, really), where lots of monsters defend them...a bit like Ulysses's Odyssey, but class-wise you can choose to be Circe or Polyphemus, for example

An alternative setting where cryomages and a lichfield captain are fitting could be the adventures of Simbad the sailor...

Of course, your roguelike, your choice...these are just suggestions based on previous posts

[Therem Harth]

Apologies for having not gotten to any of this, like, at all. Real Live Intervenes (TM).

Anyway for now I think I'm going to focus on magic, adding new stuff to the old schools system. Ideally what I'd like is to make every school stand almost on its own, but play a little differently. Mages would thus be encouraged to invest heavily in only a couple of schools, instead of needing to get a little of everything. So, the way I see it now...

- Mana would get an ID spell ("Weigh Magic") and monster/trap detection ("Sense Magic"). Mana + Conveyance would be a good shoot-and-scoot combo.

- Fire would gain a phase door spell (call it Flame Dance or something), and maybe a lightweight heal/cure spell ("Purification" or such). But no heavy duty buffs or utility spells. I'm thinking the Fire + Divination combo would be good.

- Air would get haste/berserk ("Storm Fury"), detect monsters ("Listening"), and ID ("Whispered Secrets"). Conveyance would go better with Air for a kind of weirdo ninja-mage.

- Water would get a good healing spell ("Lifeblood") but nothing else, so it could provide offense and healing for more utility-oriented realms.

- Earth would get berserk ("Strength of Stones") and heal ("Mending"). It would work kind of like Water, though with a bit of a different flavor.

- Nature would get detect monsters/traps ("Awareness") and ID ("Natural Lore"). The Nature mage could take up another school for more offense, or focus on summoning and whatnot.

- Mind would stay as is. Note that I've already made Confuse and Stun damaging, and the damage types (GF_CONF_DAM and GF_STUN_DAM) are not resistable, so this school is actually rather good now. I figure if you can get an unresistable LoS spell that deals up to 150 damage, you should be made to spend more skill points on other stuff!

- Meta would stay as is (i.e. a reserve of cool bonus spells for Sorcerers).

- Divination would get "Third Eye," a high-level spell that granted lightspeed and a large AC bonus, but for a very short time and a lot of mana.

- Temporal would get "Force Healing", a healing spell (duh).

- Conveyance would stay as is. I thought of adding an attack spell, but I think that would be too ruinous for Warpers.

If any of this sounds broken, stupid, or gratuitously unbalancing, please do say...

(And ghengiz - Pirateband does sound cool! Be a lot of work though.)