Class Discussion 02 -- What I would do...

[Draak]

I'm going to break it down class by class, current classes first:

MAGE
Becomes more focused on elemental magic -- magical "physicist" as opposed to necromancer/wizard "biologist". Keeps elemental spells (electricity,fire,ice,crystal), color spray, noxious cloud, brew potion tree, detect magic/dispel tree, fly, summon/teleport, invisibility tree, Tensor's floating disc, ventriloquate, dancing lights, candle, displace, shield, knock and other non-biological utility spells. Mages learn how to manipulate mana/magic and use it to unravel and reshape the multiverse as they wish. Works best as solo.

Loses
divination spell tree: gaze, find object, locate object, farsee
fear, possession
body alteration: infravision, blindness, strength, dexterity, water breathing, weakness, clumsiness, haste, lethargy
feeblemind  
stone skin retooled into crystal tree?
maybe loses darken

Gains
new elemental spells? summoning generic elementals?
golem crafting -- requires binding of elemental creatures to animate bodies, should be mage and not necromancer/wizard

CLERIC
More versatile, can function as druid, shaman, priest. Keeps refresh/protection tree, heal/harm trees, detect/turn undead, groupcasting, ward spells, entangling roots, create food/water, presence, word of recall/group recall, flamestrike, control weather, sunlight/sunstorm, cure poison tree, cure blindness, remove curse (cleric version of dispel magic), blizzard, ice fog, earthquake, faerie fire/fog, squeaky floors, detect align tree, spirit hammer, continual light, etc, etc. Clerics stand as representatives/intermediaries of more powerful, extra-human patrons. Works best in groups.

Loses
charm, Durhams guiding spirit, famine, confusion, mass confusion, animate dead, sense life, preservation

Gains
New druid spells (calm animal, befriend animal to replace loss of charm?)
hailstone?
demonfire?
treat disease tree? - brewable?

THIEF
Takes on dual identity of ranger or rogue. Keeps stealth tree, thievery tree, backstab, dodge, trip, throw, throw potion, poison tree and pretty much everything thieves do now except bribe. Thieves are sneaky guys that use their stealth either to "liberate" items from their owners, or to hunt down and slay enemies, often a mixture of both. Works best as solo.

Loses
bribe

Gains
From warrior:
hunting, forest navigation, climbing, mountaineering, spelunking (basically ranger skills, good synergy with contortionism, forage, etc)
trap stuff?

WARRIOR
Solid, generic class can function as anything melee. Keeps kick, bash, leaping attack, double attack, berserk, rescue/tank tree, defensive fighting, retreat, taunt/intidimidate/roar tree, valor, unarmed combat, parry, disarm, etc,etc. These guys are characters of any sort that are found on the front lines, either as hitters or tanks. Works best in groups.

Loses
hunting, forest navigation, climbing, mountaineering, spelunking

Gains
knight/paladin abilities

[Draak]

My two new class suggestions:

NECROMANCER/WIZARD
A magical "biologist" as opposed to the magical "physicist" of the mage. They can be fortune tellers, spirit mediums, witches, to full on creepy guys in graveyards with undead servants and demon familiars. They have buffing/healing abilities that they can only use on themselves, and usually have to steal energy from an opponent to work.  They function as patrons that enslave/entice lesser entities to serve, or bargain directly with equal or greater powers for limited actions (like Durham's). Works best as solo.

Gains
From mage:
divination spell tree: gaze, find object, locate object, farsee -- reflavored to be entreating spirits/demons to make searches
fear, possession
body alteration: infravision, blindness, strength, dexterity, water breathing, weakness, clumsiness, haste, lethargy, feeblemind -- possibly inviting spirits to possess bodies or make the changes?

From cleric:
charm, Durhams guiding spirit (part of divination tree), famine, confusion, mass confusion, animate dead, sense life, preservation

sense life could be retooled to be scent -- caster gains enhanced sense of smell, so they can sniff out hidden life forms. Noxious cloud would have additional dehabiliting effects on a target with scent active, and choking cloud and poison cloud would prevent the ability from working in a given room (The strong odor would mask any scents).

New
leeching spells -- leech spell (necromancer dispel, lessens spell duration on target, caster regain hitpoints), leech life, maybe more
more curses
mummification (prepare a corpse using herbs, thus creating an undead mummy when animate dead is cast upon it)
similar skill/spell to above to make skeletons better -- stone bones?
disease tree?
ward undead? - maybe for cleric...
regeneration/enhancement part of body alteration?
minor conjurations like my soul serpent suggestion
new spells from Dentin? maybe some spells that require sacrifice of hp as well (cutting your palm open for blood offering, that sort of thing)?

spells for 1st level: soul serpent and infravision

BARD
Bards are likable, loveable rogues that are favored by the universe. They use their songs to boost morale or to psyche out enemies. By themselves, they rely mostly on their luck. In fact, of all classes, primary classed bards would become more reckless and careless in battle as they gain levels, relying more and more upon their luck to win them through he day. Works best in groups.

Gains
From thief:
bribery

New
songs -- consume movement as sung, buffs and debuffs for groups, must not be tanking to use (would be in 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier of Dentin's ideal combat hierarchy) play instrument -- uses less movement than singing, but bard must be wielding the instrument in both hands and cannot cast/has decreased chance of casting spells. These are not magic, they are pyschological effects. Some ideas include:
-A battle song 'inspire courage' that gives a slight boost to the bard's group in combat.
-A lullaby that improves the regen of sleeping group members.
-A marching song that reduces room lag and movement cost.
-A pacifying song that makes aggro enemies hesitate.
-A demoralizing song that lowers combat abilities of monsters bard's group is fighting.
-A reverant song/hymn that enhances clerical spellcasting.
-A dischordant song that interfers with spellcasting (which is tied to words, so a bard disrupting concentration of spellcasters makes sense to me).

skills:

luck -- 1st level skill, passive -- The bard has a percentage based chance (something like (bard level/5)%, minimum 0.25%?, cap at 4-5%?) of having  1d(charisma score - 10) added to its hitroll, damroll, dodge, parry or castability any time a revelant check is made. Abilities that lower the bard's charisma below 10 could result in this roll being a negative amount, so it could be turned against the character in very rare circumstances. The luck formula could be used to calculate the bonuses bestowed by some of the bard's song abilities...

gamble - 1st level active combat skill, this ability consumes movement (1d20+20?) each time it is activated. Basically, the bard tries a risky manuever in combat, adding +40 or 50 to his AC (which is bad in this game) while adding an amount equal to (bard level/2 + (charisma score -10)) to either his hitroll, damroll or attacks (chosen at random) for a number of rounds equal to some sort of level or charisma based equation. Basically, it's a sort of mini-berserk. There could be multipliers to the bonus for higher level bards (x2 at 21, x3 at 32 maybe?)

bluff - active combat skill, functionally, an aggro control for the group-oriented bard class. Bard does a charisma/level check against single target -- target might back down and lose its aggressiveness for a time if cowed. If the bard is significantly more powerful and wins the bluff by a large amount, the target may flee. Basically the bard is claiming that he knows the ancient art of Krapudu and will pluck out your eyes and show them to you before you die (or something similar through body language to opponents that can't understand him.)

chance - active combat skill, tries to force a luck event, costs small chunk of movement, failure results in bard falling into prone position as if bashed. Mechanics could be charisma/dex based.

risk - active combat skill, bard lures an opponent into a compromising stance by purposly taking a blow -- when the ability is activated (You prepare yourself to take a risk... sent to self only), you forfeit dodge/parry attempts against the next successful melee attack from an opponent, which does 50% more damage. The pay off is that you have a chance of stunning him or knocking him prone as if bashed and dealing damage equal to your luck bonus to damroll (this damage should receive multipliers at higher levels maybe).

skills for 1st level: luck and gamble -- can learn at least one song at 1st level, too -- play instrument is 2nd level?

[Draak]

SOME NEEDED CHANGES:

backstab to level 1 thief, take either trip or dodge out to level 7 -- need the emphasize the difference between thieves and warriors more!

AC multiplier for shield and about_body becomes x1.5 (more sacrifice for wielding the now more powerful two_wield weapons without giving boost to players AC too much hopefully)

Animate dead makes zombies from fresh corpses, skeletons from skeletalized/skinned/butchered corpses. Have more information transfer from mob to corpse and consequently from corpse to zombie/skeleton to allow for more diversity (a frost wolf zombie that retains an ice bite dtype and ICE mtype, for example). Some dtypes (like nonorm and magic) wouldn't transfer. Impose mob corpse level limit/size limit for animate dead.

Musical instrument otype -- heavily composite dings to combat related buffs, dieroll, speed. Must be two_wield. For bards (duh).

I will add that this listing is proposed largely as a compromise to the changes Dentin is planning (i.e. the addition of 4-6 new classes) and I am open to his input and that of others. I do not know how practical anything I am suggesting is or how easy it would be to implement. I only ask that it be taken seriously and not brushed away in favor a some "grand vision". Take a few days to analyze what I have put forth, epsecially in conjunction with my posts about how I understand magic and classes in the Class Discussions 01 threads.

[Draak]

I think squeaky floors could be taken from clerics and given to necromancers. It could be presented as setting a demonling to watch over an area and sound an alarm, without really changing the strings too much.

[Draak]

Faerie fire and fairy fog could also go to necromancer/wizard, as they entreat some fey power to highlight your weaknesses for the world to see, muhahaha.

[Draak]

One more idea:

Take candle from mage and make it 1st level cleric, replacing continual light. Mages will do fine with crystal light instead.

Take continual light and give it to necromancer/wizard as a starting spell -- summoning a minor entity to provide them with light is right up their alley, thematically. Keep infravision at level 11ish necro.

1st level necro spells become: soul serpent and continual light

[Draak]

For mages:

Invisibility/mass invis, displacement, dancing lights, ventriloquate and color spray could become part of an illusion tree, perhaps also some of the illusionist ideas I posted to Dentin (largely as a thought exercise rather than a serious attempt to create a new class) like more prismatic, color sprayish-type spells. Maybe illusionary wall to 'block' exits, too?

Could have a skill called mock spell or mimic spell that allows you to cast an illusionary version of many other mage attack spells (provided you know the spell) that would throw against mental stats and cost less mana. Couldn't duplicate spells with physical components (like frostbite, noxious cloud or shards), just pure energy ones like fireball, cone of cold and lightning bolt.

Illusions in this case would be quasi-real constructs made from magical energy, conjured and shaped by the mage in reality rather than in the mind of the target(s).