Post your class and glyph ideas here!

[Drew]

Have a really cool idea for a class or glyph? Post it here and then get bashed on for how unbalanced it is!

So... anyone got cool ideas?

[spoomak]

Golem glyph - You may summon a golem on any non-occupied floor-tile. The golem doesn't move but it always attacks the same enemy that the player attacks if the enemy is within the golem's reach. Timing-wise, the golem's attack comes after the player and the enemy. Enemies don't retaliate the golem. The player may pisorf the golem and naturally the player can wonafyt, pisorf and knockback enemies to the golem's vicinity. The player can attack the golem without fear of retaliation if, for example, the golem is blocking a path. Half-dragons love knocking back summoned golems to open paths in walls. Tikki Tooki likes golem-summoning for its unfair nature and rewards the player with one piety. Earthmother kills all player's golems if the player's piety goes below one. Golems can't hurt grass any more than the player can but Earthmother gives piety-penalty for trying it (doh!).

[Jedit]

Not a class, not a glyph, but a suggestion. I've noticed a common complaint that with the change to the Goblin racial, it's harder to refill your pockets after a challenge run. When people start suggesting that players save-scum failed runs to get around that, it's definitely become a problem. Here's a possible solution.

Code: Select all

Proposed change to Normal dungeons: all Normal dungeons will spawn an additional altar to the God Baksheesh on the player's starting square.

Proposal: New God - BAKSHEESH

Baksheesh is the God of Trade, and exchanging possessions for money is his mode of worship.  It's not having gold that he loves, though - it's getting it or losing it.  Baksheesh hates it when gold is merely hoarded, and appreciates it when his adherents liberate treasure from monsters to refresh the economy.  However, unlike other Gods who bestow increased power on their devout followers, Baksheesh shows his appreciation in the form of cold, hard cash. 

Starting Piety

None.

Piety gains

+1 - killing a monster
+1 - looting a gold pile
+10 - converting a Glyph
+10 - buying an item from a shop

Piety losses

None.

Rewards

Conversion: Tikki Tooki (cost: 40 Piety)

Boon: Miser's Misery (cost: 10 Piety) - Gain 1 gold when you kill a monster.  (Cumulative with Tinker class ability)

Boon: Get To Give (cost: 20 Piety) - All gold piles will reward 3 Gold instead of a random amount.

Boon: Give To Get (cost: 40 Piety) - All shops offer a 20% discount.  (Cumulative with Tinker class ability)

Boon: Shower of Gold (cost: 100 Piety) - Your gold pool is immediately filled to the cap.

The idea behind Baksheesh is that you should be able to refill your gold pool to full in a single normal dungeon run, instead of having to do three or four rounds before you can make another serious challenge attempt. However, you won't be able to rinse and repeat the conversion of a couple of glyphs and killing half a dozen monsters like you could with Goblin Tinkers pre-0.2 - you will have to trade in glyphs, kill everything in sight and probably complete the whole dungeon before you get the big prize.

Now, a god that does nothing but give you loads of money would be boring and a waste of an altar when you're not poor. Baksheesh loves it when you shop, so all his boons make it easier to buy more - potentially trading useless glyphs for useful items. Wealthy players can take advantage of the lesser boons to pick up several cheap items effectively for free. Of course, Tinkers will get the biggest advantage from worshipping Baksheesh, which is only fair as he's the god of their lifestyle. A Tinker who starts at the gold cap could probably buy out half the shops on the map, pray for Shower of Gold, then spend himself dry buying out the other half.

[MaximumSquid]

I made another post, but I want to follow up some other ideas I had here:

Class: TYRANT
-
FEARED: after leveling up enemies permanently lose 5% of their max health (roughly 40% total by level 10)
DESTROYER: converting glyphs offers double the reward
UNYIELDING: cannot die from a single blow if health is full, immune to naga weakening ability

Class: SCOUT
-
SCOUTING: while you have full health you can see 1 additional square
CROSSBOW: first attack against a foe deals +50% bonus damage and ignores physical resistance
TRAVELS LIGHT: gold and shops are replaced with power ups instead, -1 glyph slot

Class: RANGER
-
PATHFINDER: all walls are revealed at the start and can pass through obstacles such as plants
LONGBOW: no retaliation from attacking an enemy with full health
NATURAL LORE: 20% resistance to physical damage, starts with +2 mana

Class: HUNTER
-
TRACKING: after defeating a foe enemies of the same type are revealed
ADAPTATION: permanently adds +1 base damage for every enemy killed
AMBUSH: no retaliation for attacking enemies with full health who are alone

Class: DRUID
-
CHANNELING: spells cost only 1 mana while your mana bar is full
COMMUNE: 4 Extra temples in dungeon
PROPHET: Can be host to 2 deities at a time, start with 40 piety

Class: NECROMANCER
-
NECROMANCY: defeating a foe 2 levels lower than you adds 50% of their hp and atk to yourself for your next fight
DEFILER: randomly covert blood into +1 exp, base attack, mana, or health
WEAK STAMINA: 50% less health regeneration

[Jedit]

On the whole, I don't think you've given much consideration to game balance with these abilities. Too many of them are overpowered in comparison to existing class abilities; others break the game in combination with the other abilities of their class.

Class: TYRANT
-
FEARED: after leveling up enemies permanently lose 5% of their max health (roughly 40% total by level 10)
DESTROYER: converting glyphs offers double the reward
UNYIELDING: cannot die from a single blow if health is full, immune to naga weakening ability

Feared is ridiculous. By level 7, every mob on the map will be at 73% of starting health. That would put SMM down to around 700 and the super-resist bosses to 234 - basically making them normal mobs. This would render challenge dungeons utterly trivial.

Destroyer is hugely overpowered too. A human Tyrant would easily be able to convert glyphs for 120% attack power, putting his damage somewhere in the vicinity of 130-150 per hit without items or boons; he would be able to kill Frank in three attacks and SMM in five, and one-shot Medusa or Gharbad. A goblin Tyrant would pretty much be able to level up at will, gaining two or three extra levels; combined with Feared, leveling becomes exponentially easier.

Unyielding is equally bad. Being unable to die from a single blow when at max health effectively gives the Tyrant a free CYDSTEPP with every level and every time he can explore or potion up to full health. That's basically an additional glyph slot plus double mana regeneration, and because you don't need to spend mana Tyrants can use the ability while worshipping Taurog.

Combining the three, you get a munchkin class with which it would be virtually impossible to fail. A level 1 Tyrant with no glyphs and no God could kill a level 9 Animated Armour by exploring just 90 squares, and could theoretically clear the Factory killing only that mob and the two bosses.

Class: SCOUT
-
SCOUTING: while you have full health you can see 1 additional square
CROSSBOW: first attack against a foe deals +50% bonus damage and ignores physical resistance
TRAVELS LIGHT: gold and shops are replaced with power ups instead, -1 glyph slot

Scouting is an ability of negative usefulness. All it does it expose more tiles in a manner that is difficult to control, wasting regeneration. Just to rub it in, it only works when you don't need to regenerate health.

Crossbow is thematically unsound - why would a physical weapon ignore physical resistance? - but more importantly it's massively overpowered compared to the Thief's Stabber. Change to 20% and first strike and we're in business.

Travels Light I like the idea of, but replacing both gold and shops is overpowered. When fully unlocked it would result in an additional 28 boosters appearing on the map, evenly split between mana, health and AP; this would give the Scout 9-10 extra mana and half again the health and AP of any other class (barring racials). Change to shops only and it should be OK - it might not even need the glyph penalty.

Class: RANGER
-
PATHFINDER: all walls are revealed at the start and can pass through obstacles such as plants
LONGBOW: no retaliation from attacking an enemy with full health
NATURAL LORE: 20% resistance to physical damage, starts with +2 mana

Pathfinder is another negative ability, unless you mean it shows them shadowed so they can be explored like the Half-Dragon's increased sight radius. Even then, it would still be fundamentally useless as there's no advantage to knowing where the walls are.

Longbow is a good ability, but as ever care needs to be taken when designing abilities that allow a player to ignore an attack. I can't see it being too unbalanced - one-shots can only occur in circumstances where first strike would do the same. The notable exception would be Gorgons, which could be killed at will regardless of health, and some of the first striking bosses.

Natural Lore I feel may be too strong as is. It's effectively a double-ability, combining the Paladin's PR with the Sorcerer's bonus mana (while a fully boosted Sorcerer can cast three fireballs from his pool against Pathfinder's two, both of them can cast two when not boosted - not to mention that Pathfinder also starts out with his free attack, guaranteeing him attack-FB-FB against any mob). On Pathfinder as written this wouldn't be too unbalanced since as previously mentioned the class really only has two abilities, but I'm still wary of making a class that is as good at both combat and spellcasting as two specialists.

Class: HUNTER
-
TRACKING: after defeating a foe enemies of the same type are revealed
ADAPTATION: permanently adds +1 base damage for every enemy killed
AMBUSH: no retaliation for attacking enemies with full health who are alone

Tracking is interesting, but I feel it lacks utility. Warrior and Vampire tracking is useful because it shows mobs you can kill. It does you no good to kill a level 1 snake at level 1 and be told where the other snakes are if they're level 5, 6, 7 and 9. In challenge dungeons it might be useful to help find the bosses without exploring the whole map, but there can be half a dozen mobs of that type and you don't know which is which.

Adaptation: let's just forget you suggested an ability that gives a permanent 50-80% boost to AP and move along, OK?

Ambush: I don't see where you're going with this. I'm presuming by "alone" you mean not having another mob in an adjacent square? Anyway, it's a weaker version of your Longbow ability and Longbow was fine, so the main concern is that this one may be too narrow.

Class: DRUID
-
CHANNELING: spells cost only 1 mana while your mana bar is full
COMMUNE: 4 Extra temples in dungeon
PROPHET: Can be host to 2 deities at a time, start with 40 piety

Channeling - wow, and I thought Tyrants had it good with free CYDSTEPP. Channeling would potentially allow a Druid who found CYDSTEPP to kill any mob without mana burn as soon as the Druid could deal more than twice that mob's level in damage before dying; all you'd have to do is explore leaving a bunch of corners where you can explore a single square. Other combos like double-fireball plus APHEELSIK become available too, allowing a level 5 Druid to kill Aequitas or TOG while exploring less than 100 squares. Blue Bead would be an auto-win, allowing the Druid to easily chain six or more fireballs or CYDSTEPPs without using a potion.

The other two abilities go together, and are not a good idea. I'm assuming that the 40 piety from Prophet would replace any starting piety from prayer; if not, then the ability is beyond redemption. Even with that restriction, though, it's still obscene. With seven altars on the map it would be all but certain that you would get a pair of gods that are degenerate when their boons combine. Dracul and Binlor/Taurog give 45% resistance to magical or physical damage; Earthmother/Binlor is an instant catapult to level 10 (quite likely with Stoneform too); Mystera/Pactmaker would give 38 maximum mana.

Class: NECROMANCER
-
NECROMANCY: defeating a foe 2 levels lower than you adds 50% of their hp and atk to yourself for your next fight
DEFILER: randomly covert blood into +1 exp, base attack, mana, or health
WEAK STAMINA: 50% less health regeneration

Necromancy is not well worded; it needs to provide its bonus only for the next attack, or in challenge dungeons killing one boss will guarantee killing the other as you toddle over with 300-600 health. As such, it's pointless for it to bestow health as you'll lose it after the attack anyway. The attack bonus is also too high; I would say just make it a flat 20% of your AP, or maybe 30%.

Defiler I don't like because it's random, and increasing the random element of the game reduces the amount of skill and planning you can do. The health boosts are also particularly poor due to Weak Stamina hindering your ability to take advantage of them, while the mana and base damage boosts are way too strong. Even on an average split of 20 kills, Defiler would be the Sorcerer's mana gain plus a free level's worth of damage.

Weak Stamina is a good thematic ability, but it needs to be partnered with a means of gaining health. Without such, the Necromancer is too weak in physical combat. To balance the class, I would replace Defiler with an ability that gave the Necromancer 2 health per level or 20% of health upon killing a mob.

[metroid composite]

Pathfinder is another negative ability, unless you mean it shows them shadowed so they can be explored like the Half-Dragon's increased sight radius. Even then, it would still be fundamentally useless as there's no advantage to knowing where the walls are.

Are you kidding? I'd love to know where the walls are in a half-dragon increased sight way.

Often in the earlygame you find youself wanting to explore to find enemies or deities or powerups, but you find yourself not wanting to use up too many exploration tiles because you're at full health already. exploring in a direction that has no walls increases the chance that you'll find what you need without wasting too many exploration tiles. I would honestly find this more useful than the Fighter's monster-sight (I'm usually not looking for enemies at my level; I'm looking for enemies one or two levels higher).

[MaximumSquid]

Jedit:

If I could I would love to test out custom classes in the freeware version for balance reasons, but the bottom line is that if something is too powerful it can be toned down.

If FEARED didn't apply to bosses; for example, TYRANT might be totally acceptable since you'd be only left with a version of CYDSTEPP that you can only use 2-3 times (even with a huge stack of health pots)

Another mod of FEARED might be to have it apply a flat percentage, but only apply to enemies of the level (or lower) that you have already slain. . . This would make it so on missions with 2 bosses if you kill the first the other one now becomes significantly easier to defeat, but only after getting over that initial hurdle

Also I think you greatly underestimate the ability to view terrain without actually walking over it
On missions where you need to win 2-3 in a row knowledge of the map becomes a far greater tool than simply running a class that is front loaded and getting lucky with the drop locations

Oh, and for reference, Crossbows are historically one of the earliest penetrating weapons created, but most modern day incarnations are illegal save for a diver's spear gun (shooting a bullet in the water will get you nowhere)

Moving on though. . . I am unfamiliar with Blue Beads, but as the final game rolls out there might be a lot more auto-win combos. . . honestly though I would only see that ability being overpowered if there were some 15 mana cost spells available

NECROMANCY only applies to enemies you kill that are 2 levels or lower so that class should be totally fine

My biggest hope though is that we see the elimination of leveling up mid fight, poison-running, and similar tactics being required to beat dungeons

Honestly I think if these were removed from the game we could see much better balance take shape

[zeemeerman2]

KAROSHI SUICIDE SALARYMAN (source: http://armorgames.com/play/2407/karoshi ... -salaryman)
-- FRIENDLY KAROSHI: All higher-level enemies have first strike against KAROSHI SUICIDE SALARYMAN.
-- KAROSHI'S DUTY: You don't gain XP from killing enemies. You level-up after killing yourself. Dying this way doesn't trigger game-over.
-- SUPER KAROSHI: You enter the state of being SUPER KAROSHI after leveling, being immune to all damage, but can't deal damage himself. It lasts until you touch gold. (think like how superman touches kryptonite.)

BANDAGE WOMAN
-- MEATY LOVE: Can't deal physical damage to Meat Man.
-- WALL JUMP: Can jump over walls. +80% dodge to attacks from enemies next to a wall.
-- REPLAY VALUE: When the dungeon is over, you see copies of yourself battling defeated enemies. You see one copy per slain enemy. (This should give a huge hint to the game I'm parodying.)

CITADELS PLAYER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadels_%28card_game%29)
As soon as the dungeon starts, choose three skills. You will keep these as your skills throughout the dungeon.
-- ASSASIN: When you enter the dungeon, choose a creature type. All creatures of that type are instantly killed. You gain XP as normal. Immune to bosses. (you can also choose creature types not in the current dungeon, so beware!)
-- THIEF: When you enter the dungeon, choose a creature type. When you defeat one of those creatures, you gain a random amount of gold.
-- MAGICIAN: When you stand on a square with a glyph, you may swap that glyph with a glyph in your inventory.
-- KING: You gain +1 gold for each gold stack you discover. Every time you level-up, you may switch this skill with another skill of this class.
-- BISHOP: You gain +1 gold for each temple you discover and for each boon you buy. You're immune to the first mana burn cast on you.
-- MERCHANT: You gain +1 gold for each shop you discover and for each item you buy. You receive 1 gold when you gain this skill. (at the start of the dungeon or if you convert from king)
-- ARCHITECT: The dungeon starts with +2 glyphs. You have +2 glyph slots.
-- WARLORD: You gain +1 gold for each glyph you discover and for each glyph you destroy. Destroying a glyph causes the next spell to cost half as much mana, rounded down.
-- QUEEN: You gain +3 gold if you gain gold while also having the class skill KING.

-- WITCH (can't be Assassin at the same time): At the start of the dungeon, name a creature type. You gain its special abilities.
-- TAX COLLECTOR (can't be Thief at the same time): You gain +1 gold whenever you use a glyph.
-- WIZARD (can't be Magician at the same time): You start with one random glyph in your inventory. The dungeon starts with one glyph less on the floor.
-- EMPEROR (can't be King at the same time): You gain +1 gold for each gold stack you discover. Each time you level-up, you're able to swap another class skill with another class skill that is not EMPEROR or KING. You can do this only once.
-- ABBOT (can't be Bishop at the same time): You gain +1 gold for each temple you discover and for each boon you buy. Your gold limit increases by 10 as long as you're Abbot.
-- ALCHEMIST (can't be Merchant at the same time): You're refunded all gold you're spending to buy shop items. (you don't receive any other gold income as the Merchant does)
-- NAVIGATOR (can't be Architect at the same time): You start with +4 gold and +4 glyph slots. All spells are 2x as expensive.
-- DIPLOMAT (can't be Warlord at the same time): You gain +1 gold for each glyph you discover and for each glyph you destroy. If you destroy a glyph or drink a potion, you lose poison done to you if you had any on you. Then you spread poison to all other enemies within 1 square distance. (so if you had poison before, you lose it and a nearby enemy gains poison. If you hadn't poison, the enemy doesn't get poison.)
-- ARTIST (can't also be Queen at the same time): All spells cost +1 mana, calculated before Navigator skill, and whenever you destroy a glyph, you gain an amount of mana equal to all glyphs destroyed before in this dungeon.

[metroid composite]

-- WALL JUMP: Can jump over walls. +80% dodge to attacks from enemies next to a wall.

If you were trying to make this class balanced, 80% dodge with no downside might not be the way to do it. Just FYI.

(Why not just "the player can move over wall tiles"?)

-- ASSASIN: When you enter the dungeon, choose a creature type. All creatures of that type are instantly killed. You gain XP as normal. Immune to bosses. (you can also choose creature types not in the current dungeon, so beware!)

Are you considered level 1 for all of these exp bonuses? >_> <_<. (If so, you'd enter most of the challenge dungeons at level 10).

-- ARCHITECT: The dungeon starts with +2 glyphs. You have +2 glyph slots.

So...just plain better than Wizard's magic attunement?

-- WITCH (can't be Assassin at the same time): At the start of the dungeon, name a creature type. You gain its special abilities.

I name Tower of Goo!

[Nandrew]

CITADELS PLAYER

Heh, I liked the other parodies, but realising that someone here plays Citadels has just shot your post into "awesome" territory.