Throwing around racials ideas (Excellent Racials Package)

[EnaiSiaion]

I was thinking about something while suffering from ApocRe burnout.

 

Usually "unique races" is interpreted as "pointy ears are best mages, orrrks are best fighters". But how about giving each race unique mechanics instead, so you can make a valid [any race] [any class] without gimping yourself, but picking a race determines how you play?

 

A couple of ideas I had:

 

 

Best Elves: some sort of survival scaling from magicka, enabling them to hunt for plus mag items instead of plus health. It should probably be based on current magicka so it is equally effective for fighters and mages (who have a higher magicka pool but also use some of it in combat).

 

Drummers: well drummers are known for catching fire. Constant life drain in combat, but with a skill based ability to tap health perhaps?

 

Bossmer (I have dibs on this name when TESO releases btw): no fancy stat tricks but perhaps a totem animal with shared health?

 

B-towns: throughout TES they are walking kryptonite and technically not even humans, perhaps they can't regen stamina and magicka but can absorb damage to refill their bars like an Utwig Jugger? Or move points around between their magicka and stamina?

 

Imperials: star desthe ability to share health, magicka and stamina pools into one big pool because they're so cosmopolitan and doplomacy minded that they can even negotiate a truce between their own stat bars. Might need some balancing so you can't/don't want to just sit on a large health pool and ignore power attacks and spells.

 

Radguards: some form of stamina based mechanic, perhaps something like no stamina regen but if you use some lesser power spin attack you steal stamina with it, and similar for magicka.

 

Lolcats: fragile but with a spammable lesser power that causes incoming damage to miss for a few moments, so you can manually evade most damage if you time it right. And an addiction to skooma.

 

Nerds: well everyone's a nord and some of them don't even try to kill your face when you run into them. Maybe the ability to preach about Talos/the Emperor and recruit people to your cause?

 

Argonians: no clue, maybe something about adaptation (adjusting skills on the fly or encouraging crocs to alternate melee, bows and magic?) and of course it would be awesome if they could turn people to stone.

 

 

Whatcha think? Anyone already did this? (SkyRe went for the favoured class approach instead, as clever as some of its racials are, leaving much room for improvement).

[EnaiSiaion]

Progress is being made in the shady underworld of animation events.

The most immediate result is that orcs can now jump and down to cause an earthquake. Once per fight. ORC SMASH! Dunmer will probably have a little teleport in place of a sprint and have their ancestor spirits with them at all times. Never walk alone.

 

In general, I'll add a ton of these animation event based abilities in order to make fights and RP situations more dynamic. Crouch to heal, power attack to call down lightning, etc.

Edited April 10, 2013 by EnaiSiaion

[jackowonderful]

maybe you could give redguards the spirit sword thing, have it grow in different ways with your stats/level.

 

will you add something too the unplayable races too? falmer could appear behind you out of nowhere 'cause they have awesome sneaky skills in the dark.

[EnaiSiaion]

^ Don't want to get in the way of combat balance mods but why not.

 

--

 

I now have the tech to give the target of a power custom AI packages. Not sure what to use this for, but I will find something.

 

Khajiit now do a quick dash when they sprint. Perhaps dunmer could do a short distance teleport on a running jump.

 

In general I'm aiming for at least one of these movement based abilities per race, one other race defining ability (like dunmer automatic spirits), an RP ability (everyone loves an altmer, except other races) and two active powers.

Edited April 11, 2013 by EnaiSiaion

[chromechris]

If you have the know how, and the energy to do all this, plus complete all the mods you are working on, you will deserve two kudos.

 

If it helps i have no good ideas, primarily because i don't know whats possible.

[EnaiSiaion]

The altmer USP will probably be a shield that protects you when you drop below [configurable percentage of] health by tapping your magicka. It would heal you whenever you take damage, at a 2.0 magicka rate, until you run out of magicka.

 

So you can go all "ES sorc" and skip health or you can make a warrior and spend points into magicka and stamina and benefit from a massive shield because you're not using your magicka for anything else.

 

Right now I'm implementing the animation event based abilities first. Bosmer may get the ability to sniff out targets while sneaking with predator vision and remote control their spirit animal to attack them. Lorewise bosmer should also have an incentive to eat meat...

 

--

 

^ My work order right now is

1. Excellent (during my burnout break from ApocRe)
2. ApocRe
3. Thunderbolt 2.0
4. Thunderbolt expansion for DLC users
5. Apocryphal (oh, I didn't announce this yet? xD)
6. Ravengate

Dunaduan is halted after my voice actors chickened out and I remembered again why I don't want to rely on other people.

[chromechris]

If you care about oodles of feedback, the bethsoft forums is probably the best place.

 

Besides that i wish you godspeed.

[EnaiSiaion]

Progress!

 

Bosmer Ability: Son of Valenwood/Daughter of Valenwood (it differs depending on your gender)

Passively increases disease resistance by 75%, and grants 25% bonus armor when wearing light body armor, gloves and boots and not wearing any heavy armor.

 

Bosmer Ability: Spirit Hawk

You have friends in high places... literally. At random times, a bird circles a random unfortunate animal in the zone, announcing its discovery with a loud call and marking the target with an indicator that is visible through walls. You have 75 seconds to go and kill the animal and retrieve your reward from its stomach (things like rings, gems, etc). Also, when entering combat, the bird instantly marks the nearest opponent, lowering armor by 150 and magic resistance by 75 for the duration of the fight.

 

Bosmer Ability: Tremorsense

Sneak and stop moving to reveal the location of all moving ground based targets in a radius. Friendly and hostile targets are marked in a different colour.

 

Bosmer Power: Beast Tongue

(1/day) Call the nearest predator from anywhere on the map to serve as your animal companion. This has a permanent duration until recast. The companion is protected. TODO: when active, you can tell your companion what to do. :D

 

Bosmer Ability: Carnivore

Ritually eat animal corpses in Y'ffre's name to restore 5 health, magicka and stamina per second for 30 seconds. This amount is increased by 1 after killing 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000 animals.

 

Imperial Power: Intel

Put the imperial spy meme into practice and peek over the shoulder of the nearest humanoid for 20 seconds. Cannot be used in combat.

 

Redguard Ability: Battle Tactics

During combat, random opponents are marked. Quickly attack the marked targets with weapons or spells for a nice damage bonus.

 

Argonian Ability: Tongue

Snag a target and pull them towards you. Of course.

 

 

Also, I'm considering NPC only abilities to make the races require different tactics to fight against. Hostile bosmer would be invisible until contact, for instance.

Edited April 14, 2013 by EnaiSiaion

[AfroGamerNinja]

Just saying, but for the Imperials, why not a ''disguise'' power? You aim at some random NPC and you become said NPC for a limited time.

Edited April 14, 2013 by AfroGamerNinja

[EnaiSiaion]

Because I don't want to risk breaking quests and unexpectedly allying the player with factions that are meant to be enemy factions. Also this would conflict with SkyRe sneak tools.

 

Seeing as the bosmer racials are almost finished:

The bosmer thing is nature, obviously, but there is a difference between nature themed spells and making them actually feel like a hunter. Tremorsense enables them to scope out targets from a distance while Harrier (renamed Spirit Hawk) both gives them some actual hunting to do and supports their attacks. Beast Tongue gives them an actual semi-permanent pet with a couple of abilities. What is missing right now is a way to act upon this advance knowledge instead of having to barge in anyway. The final power will fill this gap in some way. TBA. Currently contemplating the ability to call down a flock of birds on the target from any range, including through walls; or place a lure that draws enemies out one by one; or perhaps send in the animal companion and have him kill the opposition while you stay afk behind a wall.

 

And for RP reasons they should really get a bonus from eating meat and should be unable to eat fruit, but food items don't have the correct keywords to do it without touching individual food items. :(