12-25-2018, 10:13 PM
I sort of miss the uniqueness that the old history traits used to provide. Now, they all just give three stat points. Which is roughly what they gave before, but back before the great reckoning, they affected growth rates. Which made the different history traits feel like they had real weight to them. Now, I feel like you're fine picking any of them. However, I still really like the concept of a powerful trait you can only choose one of from a list. So my suggestion is this:
Masterwork traits!
Each of these traits will have a large requirement to obtain, take three trait points to purchase, and lock the buyer out from any of the other masterwork traits. (Unless they use a fruit of blandness or extend their legends and such.)
This list will have the trait's name, followed by the requirement below it, followed by its effects below that.
Herculean Physique :
50 base Strength.
Effect: You definitely didn't skip leg day. Your muscles are gorgeous. And due to their well kept shape, you've begun to reap the benefits of your immense strength! Your maximum battle weight increases by 50, your max encumbrance by 75, and basic attacks with fist weapons will knock your opponents back three tiles. If your grapple talent is at SR 5, the chance to apply the effect is also 100%.
Overwhelming Focus:
50 base Will.
Effect: Through some means, you have obtained an incredibly potent pool of focus to draw from. Increases max FP by 50, FP regeneration by 5, and spell power by 3. Any Zeran who starts a battle with somebody who has the Overwhelming Focus trait will be notified of it, due to their horns' affinity for detecting focus. (Much like the spiritually sensitive trait.)
Masterful Talent:
50 base Skill
Effect: Through incredible mastery of many things, the owner of this trait receives a passive +10 to hit, critical, status infliction, and +3 skill slots. They also have an increased talent for picking locks, making the job 15% easier.
Uncanny Dodge:
50 base Celerity
Effect: Through rigorous training, you've learned to avoid attacks like never before! Attacks you apply Evasion against will do 40% less damage instead of 30% less damage.
Immovable Aegis:
50 base Defense
Effect: You are a bastion of durability. While you are wearing heavy armor, you ignore knockback effects, and obtain +5 armor. (I was thinking 10, but armor can be very powerful, and might become too strong if stacked with artificial hair, or the mechenation bonus armor trait.)
Spellbreaker:
50 base Resistance
Effect: The path to mastering the art of defense against magic is not an easy one. It takes many trials, tribulations, and a whole lot of being hit by every element imaginable. Through your training, you've obtained +5% resistance against all basic magical elements! (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Light, Water, Acid, Sound and Dark.)
(Very strong, but only generally affects magical weapons, or magical attacks. Still leaves you just as vulnerable as ever to physical damage. And there's always null shell!)
Tremendous Stamina:
50 base Vitality
Effect: You're not like most. You can run for hours without breaking a sweat. Your incredible stamina has allowed you to ignore movement penalties for equipping heavy and light armor. (They no longer restrict movement like before.) Additionally, you obtain 50 health and physical stamina.
Unwavering Faith:
50 base Faith
Effect: Your piety has no equal. The effects of your holy and blessed weapons are now 25% more effective. Your stern belief in your god of choice also helps protect you in ways you might not expect. The chance of the intervention talent triggering raises by 5%. (The Devotion sub-talent that lowers damage by scaled faith. This would bump it up to a 10% chance at max SR.)
Lucky Find:
50 base Luck
Effect: You are extremely lucky! The drop rate of enemies you battle is increased by 30%. Additionally, you tend to find more money than usual. Giving you 25% more Murai from every completed battle.
Cunning Blow:
50 base Guile
Effect: You have a sharp eye. Ready to pounce in on any weakness your opponents might have. If they drop their guard for even a second, you'll know about it! Increases your critical rate, and critical multiplier by 10% each, as well as the chance of obtaining a vorpal strike by 5%.
(This effect is a bit stronger than the rest in my opinion, due to the fact that obtaining a lot of guile is generally less useful than obtaining a lot of skill, or will. Due to the fact that the flanking bonus caps at 15. My only real fear is vorapal fang might make that too strong, but that still requires a back attack. And a lot of guile. Additionally, the bonus critical multiplier is going to be extremely negligible. as with that much guile, it'll be the difference between a 200% multiplier and a 210% multiplier.)
Sanctified Body:
50 base Sanctity
Effect: Your body is a temple! And you take great strides towards making sure it remains as pristine as possible. Gives the holder of this trait +10 health, +10 focus, and +10% status resistance.
(Another stat that isn't quite as useful as most others, however i'm a bit wary of making the trait too strong, as the only real counter to healing magic is status infliction. and tanks with massive sanctity are already hard to deal with.)
Prodigious Talent:
50 base Aptitude
Effect: You were born special. Naturally talented at everything, you won't have to work as hard as the others to realize your potential. Gives you +3 to every base stat. (A very large boost to be sure, but the only reason people would ever have 50 aptitude anyway is pretty much just for this talent. So let them have it, I say! Overload will still put them in their place.)
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And now, for the crafting Masterworks! You can still only take one masterwork trait, so you'll have to choose how your character spends his time learning or growing stronger.
Master Smith:
Level 5 at Smithing
Effect: Any weapon you make obtains +1 power, +5 hit, critical and durability due to the flawless nature of your design. Any armor you create obtains +1 armor, Magical armor, and +3 evasion.
Master Tailor:
Level 5 at Tailoring
Effect: Any armor you make obtains +2 magical armor, +5 evasion, and -3 weight due to the flawless nature of your design.
Master Woodworker:
Level 5 at woodworking
Effect: Any weapon you make obtains +1 power, +5 hit, critical and durability due to the flawless nature of your design.
(These will allow crafted weapons and armor to be slightly stronger than the naturally found variants, allowing them to sell their wares and generally be proud of their craft, should they use their masterwork trait towards it.)
Master Alchemist:
Level 5 at Alchemy
Effect: Your skill at alchemy is flawless, giving you a twenty percent higher chance of obtaining a flawless creation and obtaining an extra sample of whatever potion you were brewing.
Master enchanter:
Level 5 at Enchanting
Effect: Due to your skills with manipulating magic in weapons and armor, you obtain double the chance of obtaining enchantment catalysts upon breaking down items.
Five star Chef:
Level 5 at Cooking
Effect: Due to your passion and mastery of the culinary arts, food you create will be 5 star superb and filling! Granting +10 to both health and focus regeneration for any food you create. (A throwback to the old cooking talent back in the day. I actually still have a few five star filling swordfish steak in a crate somewhere!)
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And finally, the Destiny masterworks. Should your character devote all their time into mastering a single aspect of fighting, this is another possible reward they might obtain!
(All of these following traits will be automatically removed should they undo their destiny at any point)
Master Magician:
Level 50 Mage
Effect: Due to your obsessive study of magic, you've obtained access to the epitome of incantation! You learn the spell, "Omnibolt" A rank B invocation that deals 200% SWA + 100% of elemental attack to a single target within 20 range, split over five attacks. Each one using the full elemental attack of the required element. (Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Ice) In that order. It also obtains a different effect based on if you are enchanted or not. Redgull: The spell can critically hit for 150% damage. Galren: The spell will knock down the target. Nerhaven: The spell will have a chance to inflict a level 60 burn. Kraken: The foe will have a chance to be inflicted by frostbite level 50. Talvyd: The foe will have a chance to receive lingering damage level 50 with a 3 turn duration.) Upon successfully using the technique, every other creature, foe, and ally in the battle are silenced for 2 rounds due to feeling imasculated by seeing the ultimate spellcasting ability. (But lets be real, a Rank b invocation takes I Think 4 turns to cast, and there's no way it'd actually get used in PVP without you being silenced or knocked down first. Unless it was mabye a group fight. But hey, its still flashy and cool! Maybe even a rank C invocation to be honest.)
Master Curate:
Level 50 Curate
Effect: Your love for supporting others has driven you towards mastery of holy magic. Damage dealt to undead enemies is increased by 50%. Half as much to possessed enemies or enemies utilizing spirits. Additionally, your positive enchantment effects apply for an extra turn on all allies, and your Pray will have more powerful random occurances. (3 shine knights instead of 1, 200 light damage to all enemies, a max sized sanctuary, -2 to all bad effects for your party, 150 health healed to all party members.)
Master Soldier:
Level 50 Soldier
Effect: You've learned that nothing beats experience in combat. And you have that in spades. Execute no longer requires the foe to be knocked down to use, but if used on a foe who isn't knocked down, goes on a five turn cooldown. Flatfoot also has a 20% chance times skill level to knockdown.
Master Summoner:
Level 50 Summoner
Effect: Your bond with your Youkai breaks the boundaries of what was considered possible before, Granting you the ability to bond with any number of youkai. Additionally, your skill in summoning has given all of your youkai 100 extra maximum health, and a 100 hp heal upon summoning them. (This will help many of the weaker youkai who spawn in with 200-400 health. And if it didn't also heal them, they'd spawn in below the max health, like all youkai who are summoned with synchro summon are.)
(A reason to finally go destiny summoner, and not be a bit gimicky!)
Master Duelist:
Level 50 Duelist
Effect: Your mastery of the dueling art of Vent Petale rivals that of the great masters of old. If you are wielding a Sword in your main hand and a Spear in your off hand, you are able to apply the Two hand talent to both.
Master Archer:
Level 50 Archer
Effect: Your skill with archery has given you such speed in reloading, many can't even tell you've done so! Passively makes your arrow skills cost 0m to use, effectively giving you an endless supply of the arrow of choice, as well as the ability to change the arrow based on the situation at hand. Your archery skills have also allowed you to ignore the penalty to hit within melee range.
Master Rogue:
Level 50 Rogue
Effect: You've learned to squeeze every little bit of potential out of the daggers you use in combat. Your mastery of the art thus, has granted you +10 power to any dagger weapon you use. Additionally, your skills in stealth and sabotage have allowed you to activate the sneak sub-talent of concealment against player character battles as well.
(Which would let elimination deal 30% more damage, and spelltheif's +10% to all damage while sneaking for the first three turns of combat which otherwise often goes unused.)
Master Martial Artist:
Level 50 Martial Artist
Effect: Your skill with unarmed combat is legendary. Your body a weapon. Your soul, a shield. Max Ki becomes 40. Fist weapons can now apply two hand as if it were a spear, sword, or axe. (You still require a hand slot item that isn't a shield or weapon. Don't ask why!) And your schwartz sturm now caps at 10!
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And that's my contribution for the day. If nothing more, I hope you enjoyed the read, or could at least laugh at it!
The intent here is twofold. One, grant characters the ability to choose a defining trait that sets them apart from those who might otherwise have similar builds. And two, to add more traits to the pool of available ones so that we can work towards making those 21 trait points actually all usable!
(Another reason I think these would cost 3 trait points, besides just their general power.)
Masterwork traits!
Each of these traits will have a large requirement to obtain, take three trait points to purchase, and lock the buyer out from any of the other masterwork traits. (Unless they use a fruit of blandness or extend their legends and such.)
This list will have the trait's name, followed by the requirement below it, followed by its effects below that.
Herculean Physique :
50 base Strength.
Effect: You definitely didn't skip leg day. Your muscles are gorgeous. And due to their well kept shape, you've begun to reap the benefits of your immense strength! Your maximum battle weight increases by 50, your max encumbrance by 75, and basic attacks with fist weapons will knock your opponents back three tiles. If your grapple talent is at SR 5, the chance to apply the effect is also 100%.
Overwhelming Focus:
50 base Will.
Effect: Through some means, you have obtained an incredibly potent pool of focus to draw from. Increases max FP by 50, FP regeneration by 5, and spell power by 3. Any Zeran who starts a battle with somebody who has the Overwhelming Focus trait will be notified of it, due to their horns' affinity for detecting focus. (Much like the spiritually sensitive trait.)
Masterful Talent:
50 base Skill
Effect: Through incredible mastery of many things, the owner of this trait receives a passive +10 to hit, critical, status infliction, and +3 skill slots. They also have an increased talent for picking locks, making the job 15% easier.
Uncanny Dodge:
50 base Celerity
Effect: Through rigorous training, you've learned to avoid attacks like never before! Attacks you apply Evasion against will do 40% less damage instead of 30% less damage.
Immovable Aegis:
50 base Defense
Effect: You are a bastion of durability. While you are wearing heavy armor, you ignore knockback effects, and obtain +5 armor. (I was thinking 10, but armor can be very powerful, and might become too strong if stacked with artificial hair, or the mechenation bonus armor trait.)
Spellbreaker:
50 base Resistance
Effect: The path to mastering the art of defense against magic is not an easy one. It takes many trials, tribulations, and a whole lot of being hit by every element imaginable. Through your training, you've obtained +5% resistance against all basic magical elements! (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Light, Water, Acid, Sound and Dark.)
(Very strong, but only generally affects magical weapons, or magical attacks. Still leaves you just as vulnerable as ever to physical damage. And there's always null shell!)
Tremendous Stamina:
50 base Vitality
Effect: You're not like most. You can run for hours without breaking a sweat. Your incredible stamina has allowed you to ignore movement penalties for equipping heavy and light armor. (They no longer restrict movement like before.) Additionally, you obtain 50 health and physical stamina.
Unwavering Faith:
50 base Faith
Effect: Your piety has no equal. The effects of your holy and blessed weapons are now 25% more effective. Your stern belief in your god of choice also helps protect you in ways you might not expect. The chance of the intervention talent triggering raises by 5%. (The Devotion sub-talent that lowers damage by scaled faith. This would bump it up to a 10% chance at max SR.)
Lucky Find:
50 base Luck
Effect: You are extremely lucky! The drop rate of enemies you battle is increased by 30%. Additionally, you tend to find more money than usual. Giving you 25% more Murai from every completed battle.
Cunning Blow:
50 base Guile
Effect: You have a sharp eye. Ready to pounce in on any weakness your opponents might have. If they drop their guard for even a second, you'll know about it! Increases your critical rate, and critical multiplier by 10% each, as well as the chance of obtaining a vorpal strike by 5%.
(This effect is a bit stronger than the rest in my opinion, due to the fact that obtaining a lot of guile is generally less useful than obtaining a lot of skill, or will. Due to the fact that the flanking bonus caps at 15. My only real fear is vorapal fang might make that too strong, but that still requires a back attack. And a lot of guile. Additionally, the bonus critical multiplier is going to be extremely negligible. as with that much guile, it'll be the difference between a 200% multiplier and a 210% multiplier.)
Sanctified Body:
50 base Sanctity
Effect: Your body is a temple! And you take great strides towards making sure it remains as pristine as possible. Gives the holder of this trait +10 health, +10 focus, and +10% status resistance.
(Another stat that isn't quite as useful as most others, however i'm a bit wary of making the trait too strong, as the only real counter to healing magic is status infliction. and tanks with massive sanctity are already hard to deal with.)
Prodigious Talent:
50 base Aptitude
Effect: You were born special. Naturally talented at everything, you won't have to work as hard as the others to realize your potential. Gives you +3 to every base stat. (A very large boost to be sure, but the only reason people would ever have 50 aptitude anyway is pretty much just for this talent. So let them have it, I say! Overload will still put them in their place.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And now, for the crafting Masterworks! You can still only take one masterwork trait, so you'll have to choose how your character spends his time learning or growing stronger.
Master Smith:
Level 5 at Smithing
Effect: Any weapon you make obtains +1 power, +5 hit, critical and durability due to the flawless nature of your design. Any armor you create obtains +1 armor, Magical armor, and +3 evasion.
Master Tailor:
Level 5 at Tailoring
Effect: Any armor you make obtains +2 magical armor, +5 evasion, and -3 weight due to the flawless nature of your design.
Master Woodworker:
Level 5 at woodworking
Effect: Any weapon you make obtains +1 power, +5 hit, critical and durability due to the flawless nature of your design.
(These will allow crafted weapons and armor to be slightly stronger than the naturally found variants, allowing them to sell their wares and generally be proud of their craft, should they use their masterwork trait towards it.)
Master Alchemist:
Level 5 at Alchemy
Effect: Your skill at alchemy is flawless, giving you a twenty percent higher chance of obtaining a flawless creation and obtaining an extra sample of whatever potion you were brewing.
Master enchanter:
Level 5 at Enchanting
Effect: Due to your skills with manipulating magic in weapons and armor, you obtain double the chance of obtaining enchantment catalysts upon breaking down items.
Five star Chef:
Level 5 at Cooking
Effect: Due to your passion and mastery of the culinary arts, food you create will be 5 star superb and filling! Granting +10 to both health and focus regeneration for any food you create. (A throwback to the old cooking talent back in the day. I actually still have a few five star filling swordfish steak in a crate somewhere!)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And finally, the Destiny masterworks. Should your character devote all their time into mastering a single aspect of fighting, this is another possible reward they might obtain!
(All of these following traits will be automatically removed should they undo their destiny at any point)
Master Magician:
Level 50 Mage
Effect: Due to your obsessive study of magic, you've obtained access to the epitome of incantation! You learn the spell, "Omnibolt" A rank B invocation that deals 200% SWA + 100% of elemental attack to a single target within 20 range, split over five attacks. Each one using the full elemental attack of the required element. (Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Ice) In that order. It also obtains a different effect based on if you are enchanted or not. Redgull: The spell can critically hit for 150% damage. Galren: The spell will knock down the target. Nerhaven: The spell will have a chance to inflict a level 60 burn. Kraken: The foe will have a chance to be inflicted by frostbite level 50. Talvyd: The foe will have a chance to receive lingering damage level 50 with a 3 turn duration.) Upon successfully using the technique, every other creature, foe, and ally in the battle are silenced for 2 rounds due to feeling imasculated by seeing the ultimate spellcasting ability. (But lets be real, a Rank b invocation takes I Think 4 turns to cast, and there's no way it'd actually get used in PVP without you being silenced or knocked down first. Unless it was mabye a group fight. But hey, its still flashy and cool! Maybe even a rank C invocation to be honest.)
Master Curate:
Level 50 Curate
Effect: Your love for supporting others has driven you towards mastery of holy magic. Damage dealt to undead enemies is increased by 50%. Half as much to possessed enemies or enemies utilizing spirits. Additionally, your positive enchantment effects apply for an extra turn on all allies, and your Pray will have more powerful random occurances. (3 shine knights instead of 1, 200 light damage to all enemies, a max sized sanctuary, -2 to all bad effects for your party, 150 health healed to all party members.)
Master Soldier:
Level 50 Soldier
Effect: You've learned that nothing beats experience in combat. And you have that in spades. Execute no longer requires the foe to be knocked down to use, but if used on a foe who isn't knocked down, goes on a five turn cooldown. Flatfoot also has a 20% chance times skill level to knockdown.
Master Summoner:
Level 50 Summoner
Effect: Your bond with your Youkai breaks the boundaries of what was considered possible before, Granting you the ability to bond with any number of youkai. Additionally, your skill in summoning has given all of your youkai 100 extra maximum health, and a 100 hp heal upon summoning them. (This will help many of the weaker youkai who spawn in with 200-400 health. And if it didn't also heal them, they'd spawn in below the max health, like all youkai who are summoned with synchro summon are.)
(A reason to finally go destiny summoner, and not be a bit gimicky!)
Master Duelist:
Level 50 Duelist
Effect: Your mastery of the dueling art of Vent Petale rivals that of the great masters of old. If you are wielding a Sword in your main hand and a Spear in your off hand, you are able to apply the Two hand talent to both.
Master Archer:
Level 50 Archer
Effect: Your skill with archery has given you such speed in reloading, many can't even tell you've done so! Passively makes your arrow skills cost 0m to use, effectively giving you an endless supply of the arrow of choice, as well as the ability to change the arrow based on the situation at hand. Your archery skills have also allowed you to ignore the penalty to hit within melee range.
Master Rogue:
Level 50 Rogue
Effect: You've learned to squeeze every little bit of potential out of the daggers you use in combat. Your mastery of the art thus, has granted you +10 power to any dagger weapon you use. Additionally, your skills in stealth and sabotage have allowed you to activate the sneak sub-talent of concealment against player character battles as well.
(Which would let elimination deal 30% more damage, and spelltheif's +10% to all damage while sneaking for the first three turns of combat which otherwise often goes unused.)
Master Martial Artist:
Level 50 Martial Artist
Effect: Your skill with unarmed combat is legendary. Your body a weapon. Your soul, a shield. Max Ki becomes 40. Fist weapons can now apply two hand as if it were a spear, sword, or axe. (You still require a hand slot item that isn't a shield or weapon. Don't ask why!) And your schwartz sturm now caps at 10!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And that's my contribution for the day. If nothing more, I hope you enjoyed the read, or could at least laugh at it!
The intent here is twofold. One, grant characters the ability to choose a defining trait that sets them apart from those who might otherwise have similar builds. And two, to add more traits to the pool of available ones so that we can work towards making those 21 trait points actually all usable!
(Another reason I think these would cost 3 trait points, besides just their general power.)
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