a battlemage
Hi,
I've given the battlemage a try the last couple of days, and I think this can be an interesting character. I'm not thinking of the paladin that never uses his magic in combination with physical skills and that use a shield and weapon, something I don't think is appropriate for a battlemage. And I don't really like the assassin either. The charge ups are just annoying, the elemental skills are kind of cheesy if you ask me and traps/shadow skills don't fit.
I think I can do better.
I envision the battlemage as a character that uses a weapon in both hands. The main-hard will use a fighting weapon (a sword for me), the off-hand will use a staff to channel the use of magic. He needs a combination of physical attack skills with both the sword and the staff, with elemental skills and magic from the staff and physical and elemental defensive skills.
The staff will be for elemental damage, the weapon for physical damage.
I think it would be interesting to have different kind of skills. I see 3 classes. The first class is the normal class. Skills that you can use whenever you want. You just need the mana. The second class are strong buff like skills that should only be cast out of battle. The third class are those skills that should only be cast in battle - mainly to have an opposite for those that have to be cast out side of battle.
Therefore, we need a new property that can have two values. One value is meditation for when things are safe, the other value is passions for in mid-battle. As you may already get, some skills are only usable when you are in meditation (M), other skills are only usable when in passion (P).
I'll try to come up with larger tree as soon as possible.
sword-based tree:
swordblock: a passive skills that offers a chance to block an attack when the character is idle or using a skills from the staff-based tree.
Stab: Simply a higher damage skills.
serpent staff (M): a temporary buff that changes the staff in a freezing snake. This snake has a freezing ranged attack and a strong poison mele attack. When using this buff, skills from the staff-based tree have reduced effect.
skin of the black wanderer (P): You call upon the spirit of the battlemage hero - the black wanderer - and bide him to help you out. The spirit offers you his equipment that cancels all of your current equipment, yet offers high weapon damage, high defence, high damage reduction and high resistance. However, you can't use magic skills when this buff is active - think of it like the druids shafeshifts. Some skills can be used, others can't.
staff-based tree:
staffblock: The same as swordblock.
concealed attack: you fake an attack with your sword, yet attack with your staff. This makes the attack slower then a normal attack yet offers high cth, %uninteruptable, high critical damage and high physical damage (for a staff).
demon fire (M): a buff that creates a large fireball that flies around the caster. This fireball shoots a number of firebolts at approaching monsters. It tries to distribute the fireballs to all monsters yet if impossible, all bolts will hit the same monsters, causing huge damage.
If you let this be cast in battle, things get overpowered to fast, as the firebolts should really do good damage.
ice cave (P) : Creates a half-circular (180°) cave of ice around the battlemage shielding it from all damage that comes from that direction. The cave has both a life and duration property.
I am aware of the fact that the class only has 2 trees at the moment. Yet I don't know what third tree might work. Suggestions are appreciated.
[edit]
There is this anecdote that I have to tell about demon fire. It's not a demonic skills, it's a normal skills. The idea comes from something similar to dungeons and dragons. The idea is that the character uses a part of his spirit to create the fireball. This means that even if the caster is asleep - or even dead - the fireball keeps working as it has some sort of own spirit.
Offcource, if you kill someone and his fireball keeps spinning, you quickly think of a demon? Hence the name.