A lot of class powers in ADOM don't really make a lot of sense. I suspect many of them were created well before a lot of the game was finalized, and, as a result, some of the effects that might have seemed good when TB first created them (pretty much anything involving the wilderness, for example) turned out to not be very useful. This is probably not something that's ever going to get fixed since it's a fair amount of work, but I thought I'd brainstorm some ideas for how this could go to see what people think, and maybe in the hopes that somebody TB would revisit this issue.
The main goal here is to have all class powers at least in some way useful. They don't necessarily have to be fantastic, but they have to be thematically appropriate, and something the player might look forward to getting. I tried to avoid making anything too overpowered, and tried to have some variations in terms of when things arrive--eg. some classes get their best abilities quite early, others develop power as the game progresses. The level 50 powers, which are really hard to reach, I tried to make a bit more unique for most of the classes, though a few of them are probably still a bit lame.
Here's what I settled on:
Classes where the class powers are basically fine, IMHO:
Archer, Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Chaos Knight, Duelist
Levels not listed will remain as they are.
Beastfighter
Most of their abilities are fine. I've been struggling to find useful things to do with the summoning abilities. In their case, I just got rid of it.
Level 25. Confusion resistance.
Druid
Druids get a complete overhaul of their class powers. I still wanted to keep the wilderness flavour, but made the effects much more useful to encourage the druid to "return to nature" every so often. Druids are now the class best able to deal with corruption.
Level 6. In addition to evading wilderness encounters, druids are also immune to weather effects at this point (this immunity should also apply in the IQD).
Level 12. Druids are much better at reading spellbooks in wilderness areas compared to dungeons (increased chance to learn + more castings).
Level 18. Druids can summon 2d2 bears or wolves. Cost is 50 PP for the lot instead of Ma.
Level 25. While in wilderness, druids are able to purge themselves of a small amount of corruption. This results in a permanent loss of 1d3 Ma (purge is 200 corruption points per point of Ma lost).
Level 32. Druids regenerate an extra 1 HP per 10 turns for each neutral or friendly animal on the level (excluding breeders and summons not created by the druid).
Level 50. Druids are completely immune to background corruption.
Elementalist
Elementalists will now gain added power in their class-specific spells (burning hands, frost bolt, etc.)
Level 18. Gains +3 ranks in all Elementalist spells.
Level 32. Elementalist spells are much less likely to be shrugged off by monsters.
Level 40. Pet costs 100 PP, disspates after 50 turns. With the switch to a PP cost, I can imagine players using this as a temporary, short-term tank to absorb some damage while they fight.
Level 50. Elementalist spells require only 750 energy to cast.
Farmer
Farmers abilities aren't combat-related, so I decided to focus particularly on giving them better class powers with regard to food and attributes.
Level 18 - Farmers gain 50% more positive benefits from using herbs. In particular, they get better healing from Pepper/Spense, more food from stoma, better poison/disease curing, and require fewer herbs to gain stats with morgia/moss.
Level 25 - Farmers now have a much higher chance to get beneficial effects from cooked food. Any roll for increase stats or random intrinsics is triple checked (eg. it rolls 3 times, if any pass, then the get the effect).
Level 32 - Farmers gain an additional 1d3 HP per level.
Fighter
Fighters get a complete overhaul of their class powers. There's too much redundancy in them at present, and most of the effects are just too weak. Fighters now get much more substantial defensive boost early in the game, and transition into some decent offensive powers later in the game.
Level 6. 25% PV from armor up front.
Level 12. Fighters gain a 50% bonus to the DV provided by their shield.
Level 18. Fighters gain a 15% bonus to positive modifiers provided by their tactics settings.
Level 32. Fighters no longer suffer any penalties for being surrounded in combat.
Level 40. Change to passive effect. 15% of attacks will do extra damage and have a chance to stun.
Level 50. Fights will counterattack against any enemy attack that is blocked by their shield. Counterattacks do 50% of normal damage, but cost no energy.
Healer
Healers gain a lot of power to their healing spells, making them extremely durable.
Level 18. All of the spells that they used to get at levels 25 and 40 are available here.
Level 25. Healing spells recover 25% more HP.
Level 40. Healing spells now only cost 600 energy.
Merchant
Merchants get a complete overhaul of their powers. In particular, I wanted to focus more on their item specialization as their key feature.
Level 6: Shop prices lowered by 40%.
Level 18: Merchants gain a second item specialization (includes learning alchemy if it is potions)
Level 25: Calm monsters by giving away items (moved from 40)
Level 32: Carrying capacity is tripled (from 50)
Level 40: Merchants are more likely to find rare items in their specialization categories.
Level 50: Merchants now have a 50% chance of not using up a consumable item from their given specialization type (eg. using a wand has a 50% chance of not spending a charge; using a scroll has a 50% chance of preserving the scroll).
Mindcrafter
Most of their abilities are fine. Their level 12 ability is redundant with one of their mindcraft powers, so I replaced it with an emergency lifeline class power.
Level 12. Gain the ability to completely replenish PP at the cost of 1 point of To.
Monk
Most of their class powers are great. Level 50 power is too weak. Now monks are now resistant to negative effects from accumulated corruptions.
Level 50. Attribute penalties from corruption are lowered by 50%.
Necro
Mostly fine. The only powers that really need work are the raise ghuls/wraiths from corpses abilities. On one hand, this is actually a really cool effect that I've love to keep. On the other hand, AFAIK, nobody ever uses them. The ghul one I kept with a minor change. The level 32 is replaced with something much more useful.
Level 18. Raise all nearby corpses are ghuls. These degenerate over time. This ability now costs no PP.
Level 32. Gains a class power to completely heal an adjacent undead slave for a cost of 100 PP.
Paladin
I juggled around a few of their powers and made them more specialized at killing undead/daemons.
Level 1. The level 18 class power is now given for free at level 1.
Level 12. Their critical hit rate against undead is increased by 15% (melee only).
Level 18. Level 25 class power is now available here.
Level 25. Level 32 class power is now available here (HP recovery is now level-20d6 instead of level-24d6).
Level 32. Their critical hit rate against daemons is increased by 15% (melee only).
Priest
Priests have too much emphasis on a rarely used ability (turn undead) and especially the later versions are just not worth it. I've kept most of their good powers the same, but there's some new stuff here too.
Level 1: Turn undead.
Level 6: Prayer costs are reduced.
Level 32: Major undead destroyed by turn undead. (from 50)
Level 40: Priests can now ask for a specific divine intervention from their deity when praying.
Level 50: All items placed on an altar from a Favoured (ie. "Your god favours you" or better peity status) deity will be blessed.
Ranger
Rangers are now duel-wielding specialists much more than they used to be. Rather than just getting to-hit bonuses (or rather, no penalties) they now get a few nice bonuses.
Level 6: Survival stuff. Combine with level 12 AND 25 powers.
Level 12: Double weight 2 wielding with no penalty (from 32)
Level 25: Critical hit rate while duel wielding increased by 10%.
Level 32: Quadrupole weight 4 wielding with no penalty (from 50)
Level 50: No extra energy penalty for duel wielding (base cost is now simply the slower of the two weapons)
Thief
Thieves actually have a pretty nice set of class powers. The level 18 power is terrible nuisance, however, so I've changed that and their level 50 power.
Level 18: Thieves now passively attempt to steal items from a store the first time they pick them up (no failure penalty... just like potion of invis theft).
Level 50: Thieves will now attempt to pickpocket free with every attack.
Weaponsmith
Most of their class powers are okay as long as you like to smith. I've got rid of the stupid item identification ones to give them some more smithing powers.
Level 25. Success rate of Smithing high-end items is increased (in practice, reduces the chance of getting the "Despite your best efforts, the item does not improve" message).
Level 50. Can smith artifact-level equipment of appropriate metals (with low success rates).
Wizard
Beyond level 18, very few of Wizard's class powers are useful. Not that Wizards need a buff, but they get one anyway.
Level 25. Change to three spells per level gaining knowledge.
Level 40. The range on ball type spells is increased by 1.
Level 50. Gain +10 Ma.
So there you have it. How I'd change the class powers if I had the ability to do so. Thoughts? Comments? Flames? This is all just hypothetical, so feel free to tear my ideas apart or post your own.
Last edited by JellySlayer; 11-24-2016 at 07:48 PM.
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.
I agree that a fair amount of class powers are very lack luster and some even useless.
On the other hand it's also a good challenge to play a rotten ss/race/class combo from time to time.
Some of the suggested powers seems very strong.
I would probably look at the all existing abilities and pinpoint those that are useless (for example turn undead) to look for appropriate changes.
Aren't the level 40 and 50 powers pretty rubbish? Fighting in true berserk at that point seems like a bad idea.
Druid:
I think focusing on lightning abilities would be much more interesting(extra lightning spell knowledge, improved lightning ball, etc). Not much of a fan of abilities that require you to be in the wilderness. The corruption re-reroll, for instance, would be pretty tedious to use, as you could easily be deep into the CoC by the time you can make use of it. Summoning worthless monsters is pretty awful, even if you have a ability later on which synergizes with it. Even 100% background corruption resist is a pretty bad class power, if you get it at level 50.
Fighter:
Level 50 ability sounds like a fun source for bugs . I actually think you could make all-around attack work out with some extreme buffs (1200 energy cost, affected by weapon skill?) - it is a level 50 ability, after all.
Merchant:
Level 40 is fairly useless given when you get it. Level 50 is... weird - I would prefer something else here. Also: merchant thrown gold shouldn't count as an improvised missile (give it the normal 1000 energy cost).
Monk:
Circle kick could stand to be replaced/buffed (1500 energy cost, affected by unarmed skill?) - as it is fairly worthless as-is.
Thief:
Shoplifting class power should just be invokable with CTRL-x, I think this would fix what's wrong with it. Current level 50 power is waaaaay cooler (and less prone to alignment issues, and horrific bugs) than the one you suggest.
Weaponsmith:
Disagree with the level 50 class power, I don't think modifying artifacts should be within the power of PCs.
I think focusing on lightning abilities would be much more interesting(extra lightning spell knowledge, improved lightning ball, etc). Not much of a fan of abilities that require you to be in the wilderness. The corruption re-reroll, for instance, would be pretty tedious to use, as you could easily be deep into the CoC by the time you can make use of it. Summoning worthless monsters is pretty awful, even if you have a ability later on which synergizes with it. Even 100% background corruption resist is a pretty bad class power, if you get it at level 50.
Level 25 is not too bad for this. You'll get it around Casino time, so you can always slip out of CoC via shortcut to cure corruption, and PCs often make the trip out for other reasons anyway (especially ultra hopefuls). I agree that wilderness abilities aren't great in principle, but I think giving druids a wilderness flavor is still worthwhile. All level 50 class powers are going to be fairly useless on some level or other, but no background corruption is somewhat usable, I think. If you hit level 50 before reaching Chaos Plane, you can fight a (mostly) corruption-free ultra.
Summons are generally bad, I agree. I think changing the cost to PP instead of permanent Ma loss would at least make people think about using it... either as meat shields or just hiding them in a room so you can boost regeneration for the rest of the level.
Fighter:
Level 50 ability sounds like a fun source for bugs . I actually think you could make all-around attack work out with some extreme buffs (1200 energy cost, affected by weapon skill?) - it is a level 50 ability, after all.
Bugs can be fixed.
The general problem with all around attacks is that getting yourself surrounded is usually a bad idea. I guess if you made the energy cost low enough that it would be worth using against two monsters, yeah, maybe people would use it, but then it's still annoying having to do Ctrl-X, mash button, all the time.
Thief:
Shoplifting class power should just be invokable with CTRL-x, I think this would fix what's wrong with it. Current level 50 power is waaaaay cooler (and less prone to alignment issues, and horrific bugs) than the one you suggest.
Current level 50 power is terrible though. If you're level 50, you ought to have a source of invisibility already. Or you don't need it.
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.
All level 50 class powers are going to be fairly useless on some level or other, but no background corruption is somewhat usable, I think. If you hit level 50 before reaching Chaos Plane, you can fight a (mostly) corruption-free ultra.
I guess if it applies to Chaos Plane, it would be good - although one could argue that this corruption is one of Andor's powers, rather than true background corruption.
Originally Posted by JellySlater
Bugs can be fixed.
The general problem with all around attacks is that getting yourself surrounded is usually a bad idea. I guess if you made the energy cost low enough that it would be worth using against two monsters, yeah, maybe people would use it, but then it's still annoying having to do Ctrl-X, mash button, all the time.
Doesn't mean that they will be (in any timely fashion). Anyway, automatic actions open up a big can of worms (karmics - except with ring of karmic absorption, acidic skin - except when uncorrodable weapon, paralysis skin - except with resistance, creatures that mess with your alignment, and the fact that it will probably end up crashing the game for the next 3 patches ). A good all-around attack could at least see some use on the chaos plane.
Originally Posted by JellySlayer
Current level 50 power is terrible though. If you're level 50, you ought to have a source of invisibility already. Or you don't need it.
Sometimes you won't have a source of invisibility, sometimes you want to avoid the hunger cost of invisibility items. It's actually better than the proposal - which again brings up the problems of automatic actions (dropping alignment, message spam, burden, angering monsters, game bursting into flames).
Sometimes you won't have a source of invisibility, sometimes you want to avoid the hunger cost of invisibility items. It's actually better than the proposal - which again brings up the problems of automatic actions (dropping alignment, message spam, burden, angering monsters, game bursting into flames).
I get your point about automatic powers being potentially problematic.
I don't agree at all that the current level 50 power is remotely any good however. At level 20, it would be decent, I suppose. At level 50, it's only slightly better than Weaponsmith's power.
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.
Some ideas for abilities for Weaponsmiths:
1) reforge non-artifact item with a higher metal. Lvl 12 mithril, lvl 25 adamantium, lvl 40 eternium.
2) add extra metal layer as protection to an item. Item becomes much heavier but less prone to destruction/damage.
Yeah I think a change along these lines could be a big improvement to the game. Class abilities are fun, and worthless class abilities are just sad.
I really love the level 50 priest suggestion.
For smiths, being able to improve artifacts feels a little awkward. How about an ability to create new weapons and armor out of ingots? With a random chance to get prefixes..
At level 50 they should of course learn how to mend a broken pickaxe.
You steal a scroll labelled HITME. The orc hits you.
I love most of the original suggestions, though in some cases I simply don't know if the proposal is ok or not, since I don't play some of the classes.
For example I never ever play beastfighters so I couldn't be bothered by any changes to their class powers.
One thing I noticed however, and I think a lot of people will agree with me on this, is that class powers' usefulness often falls into a short time-window, between when it's obtained and when it's no longer needed.
Sometimes, more often than not, these two moments do not overlap. I play thieves often and I have yet to remember a single instance of lvl 50 class power being of any use.
I *always* have another source of invisibility at that point and the energy consumption is irrelevant with stoma herbs.
What I would do with thieves is give them this power at lvl 18 BUT change it to toggle, at the same time making it use PP, less with each level gained, culminating with no PP used up at level 50.
It would still only work when adjacent to a wall but at least would be useful earlier, when it matters.
For elementalists, I would advocate something I have already proposed years ago - instead of burrowing through rock, make them ignore it, at the cost of PP of course.
That way, there would be a relatively big incentive to get to level 50 asap, at least it would be for me.
What I would very much like to see done with farmers is marginalize the negative corpse effects with levels gained.
It would be nice to eat all the stuff that you normally throw away because it's corrupting/abusing stats/paralyzing/sickening/whatever.
Not total removal of these features but a major decrease in frequency of occurrence.
Weaponsmiths are another story. I really like the idea of improving artifacts at level 50 or at the very least, being able to remove negative DV/PV modifiers and/or to-hit and to-damage bonuses.
On the other hand, I get really excited at the thought of being able to create weapons (and possibly armor) of choice, assuming my PC has seen the "design".
The additional chance to get an affix would be really nice.
For paladins, I would like to see something like weapon consecration, for extra demon/undead damage, perhaps at level 18 or 25.
Since they are effectively warpriests, they should be able to use their piety AND their PP to add a temporary Holy prefix to any weapon wielded, which would act in similar fashion to the Holy Avenger artifact.
Double the damage or something. If the piety and PP costs scaled with levels, this would see continued use but would also force players to maintain a healthy relationship with their deity, to reap the benefits of their piety.
I think this works well with them being holy warriors.
Last edited by Blasphemous; 11-26-2016 at 12:13 AM.