'nother character concept thingy, in a manner of speaking, after a fashion

[Ãœdorim]

'nother character concept thingy, in a manner of speaking, after a fashion

Long story short(ened): I don't have an internet connection of my own anymore, nor a lot of time, thus I haven't done much to work on any of my writing project thingamabobs ... of course, I didn't really work to hard on them when I had both a connection and a lot of time, so in reality I guess you could just say that I'm a horrible person. But I have had a sort of an idea germinating in the back of my head for a while now, a sort of a character concept that spun from the tail end of a deep-sixed story of mine (which of course I don't think I ever even started). I figured it would only take me a couple quarter hours to write up a character concept in full, and even though certain, shall we call them Journals, are left without new entries for the time being, there is this instead. The character class of the future. Yeah.

The character class of the future, almost, but first: some mechanics get in the way.

The way I see it, Diablo 3 will be as different from Diablo 2 as said game was from Diablo 1. Seems obvious. And I'm sick of D2 character concepts. So even though the ideas I have to present will probably not be those actually used in the next Diablo, likely not even close, I will still present them and base a concept on them anyway. To be succinct, which is something I am sublimely skilled at, skill points as we know them are gone. I think synergies were a decent idea gone awry -- I hate their implementation. So even though they might be the way of the future, my proposed solution is this: instead of putting skill points into individual skills, characters will put them into the entire skill tree as a whole. For example, a sorceress with 30 points in the cold tree may have as a result the equivalent of a level 1 frozen orb and a level 10 frost nova and a level 20 frost ball level 1 thingy, etc etc. To create diversity, each class now has 6 skill trees to put their points in, and certain skill trees augment the powers of others. This is both simpler than D2 mechanics, as there are only 6 options rather than 30, but also leads to more expansive skill lists, as the average D2 character had only 6 skills (approx. 120 skill points / 20 give or take) whereas the new characters have access to at least two entire trees.

Hopefully that didn't take too long. So anyway, onto the character class of the future: the totem barbarian!

The totem barbarian is born of the rejoined barbarian and druid clans (neither of which as separate entities are present in Diablo 3 -- well, you can't prove me wrong, yet). Revelling in the shamanistic heritage of his shapeshifter forefathers and the rugged genes of his barbarian ancestry, the new barbarian is empowered with the fury of the earth itself in his unceasing quest ... to kill things over and over again for shiny items.

Totem Barbarian Skill Trees:
- Warcries
- Totems
- Summons
- Were-forms
- Combat Skills
- Combat Masteries

Warcry - Alarm - Level 1+
Description: the totem barbarian shouts an alarm to his comrades, warning them of danger as well as increasing their alertness.
Statistics: covers a large area quickly, lasts for a short duration increasing slightly with level.
Use: increases Awareness, lessening a running character's defense and block penalty, increasing light radius, decreases damage/sec from damage over time sources hitting the character while under Alarm. Also has a vast range of trigger properties (alerting sentinels, guards, mercenaries etc).
Synergies: none

Warcry - Rage - Level 6 +
Description: the barbarian screams in anger, filling himself and his companions with an insatiable blood lust.
Statistics: covers a large area for a long duration but effect stops when a character is no longer in line of sight with the barbarian.
Use: decreases fear penalties, increases physical damage dealt and recieved.
Synergies: none

Warcry - Bark - Level 12 +
Description: the barbarian lets fly with an earth-splitting howl, dropping into a fearless charge ... or that's what it seemed like he was going to do, but he hasn't run full tilt into your shield yet, so maybe you should lower it and find out what's really going on?
Statistics: affects foes directly in from of the barbarian.
Use: enemies recoil in fear: weak enemies run a full-tilt retreat and even foes stronger than the barbarian himself interrupt their current action to block, leaving them open to attacks when they lower their defenses.
Synergies: Combat Mastery: a tight self-control is necessary to bluff intelligent enemies. Increased mastery of the mind heightens the chance of fooling a tough enemy.

Warcry - Pain - Level 30 +
Description: the totem barbarian has developed his voice to the point where it can emulate human emotion -- and suffering. The barbarian relays all the pain and agony of shapeshifting into a blood-curdling scream.
Statistics: requires the barbarian to be a master at shifting forms (at least 20 points? in were-forms) as well as warcries.
Use: Pain is used automatically during the shift into animal form (but not backwards into human form) with no penalty or mana cost, and can be considered a passive skill. It deals damage and causes fear in enemies even at long distances.
Synergies:
Were-forms: the larger the form shifted into, the more bone-cracking skull-splitting pain the barbarian endures, and can pass along to his enemies. No bonuses are accrued for actual skill in Were-forms, only in base damage for the form shifted into.
Combat Masteries: a talented barbarian can keep his composure even during the pain induced by shape shifting. Increased combat mastery allows the barbarian to channel his scream more effectively, doing more damage over a larger distance.

Totem - Nature Sign - Level 1 +
Description: the totem barbarian constructs a design on the battlefield, as a sign to allies who journey after the him.
Stastics: no height (affects distance, how far away the totem can be seen from), lasts until walked over/disrupted.
Use: reveals a large area of the map to allies who study it, as well as revealing the barbarian's location on the map despite distance.
Synergies: none

Totem - Banner - Level 6 +
Description: the barbarian erects a flag bearing the insignia of the heavens.
Statistics: height increases with level (affects how far away the totem can be seen from), long duration, but disappears when the barbarian leaves it.
Use: greatly enhances the armour of nearby allies. The bonus is greater to heavier types of armour, and thus melee characters benefit more from it than do casting classes.
Synergies: none

Totem - Puppet - Level 18 +
Description: the barbarian is a master of ventriloquism, throwing his voice.
Statistics: is gained when high levels of warcries and combat masteries are attained (as well as totems). Height increases with totem level, has a long duration until its use (see below).
Use: creates an empty totem at target location. The barbarian can then cast a warcry overtop the puppet, which will continue to carry the warcry, allowing him to reach allies further away (such as across chasms or rivers). The barbarian can create multiple puppets and make a "chain" of warcries. The puppet can only carry certain warcries, and does so at decreased effect, and crumbles after it is used.
Synergies:
Combat Masteries: decreases the penalty given to warcries used with a puppet.
Warcries: increases the number of times a puppet may be used before crumbling.

Totem - Skeletal Construct - Level 24 +
Description: the barbarian dismantles slain opponents and makes a fearsome effigy from their bones.
Statistics: high height, short duration
Use: creates fear in nearby enemies, decreases their damage. The skeletal construct can be climbed by allies (or fearless enemies!) and provides a defense bonus (useful for archers, mages, etc) but will damage them if it collapses will they are atop it.
Synergies:
Combat Skills: enough points in combat skills allows the barbarian the option of lighting the construct on fire, increasing its range and effect but decreasing its duration.
Summons: enough points in summons allows the barbarian to animate portions of the construct, giving it a thorns-like defense (construct only).

Summon - Summon Raven - Level 1 +
Description: the raven is an intelligent bird, jet black and swift.
Statistics: raven count increases (very slowly) with skill level, raven speed increases with level, ravens last until used.
Use: summons a raven which flies about, increasing the totem barbarian's light radius (field of vision). Can be used to pick up an item or activate a shrine (but not well, switch or similar item) but does not attack or do damage. Can't be targetted but is affected by area of effect spells.
Synergies: none

Summon - Summon Strangle Vine - Level 12 +
Description: the strangle vine comes from the jungles of Kurast, where it lives as a tree parasite.
Statistics: short range, one time use, hit points and defense increase with level.
Use: summons a white vine that wraps around a victim, suffocating and immobilizing it. Some enemies cannot be suffocated, however as it grows stronger it also grows thorns and does additional damage.
Synergies: Were-forms: points in were-forms gives the strangle vine a more animated life, allowing it to lay in wait like a trap for an enemy, instead of having to be summoned on an existing foe.

Summon - Summon Bramble Hulk - Level 24 +
Description: also originating from Kurast, the bramble hulk is a peaceful tree awoken to terrible reality.
Statistics: maximum 2 hulks, high hit points and low defense, thorns damage
Use: summons a bramble hulk with low intelligence to follow the barbarian. Cannot be given commands, primary source of damage is its thorns.
Synergies: Totems: points in totems allow larger hulks to be created, vastly increasing its hit point pool.

Summon - Summon Grizzly Bear - Level 30 +
Description: found across the land and usually solitairy, the grizzly bear is a formidable foe, and at the top of the food chain.
Statistics: maximum 1 bear, high hit points, defense and damage.
Use: summons a grizzly bear with medium intelligence. Can be given rudimentary commands (attack, run, hold position). The bear progresses with kills, gaining as much as a 15% increase in strength. This is lost if the bear dies.
Synergies: none

Were-forms - Lycanthropy - Level 1 +
Description: The totem barbarian can perform supernatural feats, but it is beyond even his ability to transform immediately into creatures of great power. Even though he can turn himself into a 30 foot long worm or a tremendous thunderbird, to do so in haste can cause great damage.
Statistics: passive skill.
Use: when transforming into larger forms, the totem barbarian must first transform himself into a lower form to help rid himself of his vestigal humanity, or risk being damaged in the process. A druid who transforms immediately into a large form without making an intermediary step will end up with as low as half his hit points remaining.
Synergies: none

Were-forms - Wolf - Level 1 +
Description: it's the wolf.
Statistics: medium duration, short transformation time. Shifts from and into many different forms with ease.
Use: shifts the totem barbarian into a wolf with a faster attack and movement speed, and access to the widest variety of combat skills available to shifted forms.
Synergies: dunno. Lycanthropy?

Were-forms - Vine Worm - Level 24 +
Description: with this transformation the totem barbarian melds his body into a gnarled wooden vine, capable of moving at great speeds and dealing large amounts of damage.
Statistics: Requires a large mastery over summoned creations. Has a long duration and very long transformation time. Is not capable into shifting into any form other than human, which will deal the barbarian damage upon transformation.
Use: most damage and defense of the barbarians were-forms. The vine worm has a low acceleration but high top speed, and has no penalties for running (or wiggling real fast). It has a low attack speed and cannot use warcries, however it can construct totems.
Synergies:
Summons: the vine worm may use summoned vines to attach to it and increase its power, for example the strangle vine gives it thorns damage and the solar creeper adds to its mana leech and nighttime regeneration.
Combat Skills: the vine worm has two exclusive combat skills: Engulf and Strangle, but cannot use any other combat skills.

Were-forms - Roc - Level 30 +
Description: the thunderbird, a legendary creature of dignity and ferocious raw power.
Statistics: long duration, slow transformation.
Use: shifts the barbarian into a Roc, giving him limited ability to fly, (he can cross rivers and chasms but not ascend cliffs), more attack damage and hit points and bonus lightning damage.
Synergies:
Totems: upon death the barbarian leaves behind a dream stone, the mythical rock located in the base of the Roc's brain. This can be used by any character quick enough to pick it up to resurrect any one nearby dead ally, including the barbarian. Once picked up, the stone must be used quickly, before it becomes ephemereal and disappears.
Warcries: the Roc's power over thunder grants it increased power with war cries. Enemies tremble at its call.
Combat Skills: with practical martial experience, the druid can unleash the Roc at its full potential, greatly increasing its attack speed. The Roc also has exclusive access to the Rend combat skill.

To be honest I dunno how I feel about this character, it might be too ... much like something, I dunno what. Nothing? But I wouldn't mind looking at two barbarians and not be able to find any similarities. Anyway, I'm not going to bother with the last two tech trees, as this is quite clearly enough too much already. Basically the idea is that you can either create a bunch of summons, then warcry them to insane proportions, or strategically trap enemies with totems and then bombard them with summons, or be pretty well equivalent to a D2 barbarian with lots of combat skills like a frenzied whirlwind with combat masteries, or transform into a monstrous beast and then do the whirlwinding, or transform and then summon things, or trap things with strategically placed totems and then transform into a monstrously huge beast and hurl yourself at the aforementioned trapped things, or pick up items with ravens, or summon things and kill alongside them like a barbarian, or do just about anything that doesn't involve the elemental side of things. Because that side is exceedingly small and has mold on it and smells funny.

I'd imagine each skill tree has upwards of 10 skills without including the ones granted it from synergies from other trees, such as the were-form combat skills.

My favorite skill was Puppet.

The Roc reminded me too much of warcraft.

Mystic River was robbed.

I'm going now.

p.s. sorry about posting. I apologize.

 

[Snowglare]

Hehe. Nice concept. I didn't read it all, but what I did read was interesting. Character concepts aren't really my thing, but a well written one can hold my attention for a while.

"p.s. sorry about posting. I apologize."

You should be sorry for posting so little. For shame!

 

[Bitterman]

I like it.

 

[CliffCarlisle]

Nice! Thats facinating. It makes me want to do a character in that style.

Thanks for the inspiration! And the cool concept. :flip:

 

[Jazzmosis]

It's a good concept, but a rediculously complex system for attributing points... IMO what Diablo 2's fall was a max level of 99... should have been a level of 300 or something, so more time to learn skills.. to me, it'd be a better/easier way of dealing with skills.

 

[Ãœdorim]

It's a good concept, but a rediculously complex system for attributing points... IMO what Diablo 2's fall was a max level of 99... should have been a level of 300 or something, so more time to learn skills.. to me, it'd be a better/easier way of dealing with skills.

No no no, that simply won't do!

The whole point of my idea is that players don't pick their skills. They just pick which area they want to progress in. It would be much more complex from a designer's standpoint to include my spin on synergies ... though it wouldn't be necessary ... but that's why it's just a concept. For the player, the way I imagine it, the system would be simpler. Oh well.

There are many problems with simply jacking up the maximum level. With 300 skill points, someone could max fifteen skills, i.e. half of the entire list. If you consider that almost as many as half of all skills are useless, that pretty much destroys character variety. Here's what I mean, (ignoring synergies for the moment) take the barb as an example.

You can immediately drop five weapon masteries, increased stamina speed and natural res (which only need one point each, really), leap (which is replaced by leap attack), bash and stun most likely, double swing, most likely double throw, taunt grim ward and howl don't need to be maxed ... that's at least 15 skills that are useless to the average barbarian, leaving him with 15 skills to allocate points to. With 300 skill points, he can fill them all. Thus making every barbarian on the realms virtually identical.

And what are you going to do about experience? Make a player gain levels faster? Then it means less to achieve one. Extend the game by adding another 10 acts? Try to sell that idea to Blizzard. Wait -- this isn't fiction. I'm gonna go.

 

[tamrend]

There are many problems with simply jacking up the maximum level. With 300 skill points, someone could max fifteen skills, i.e. half of the entire list. If you consider that almost as many as half of all skills are useless, that pretty much destroys character variety. Here's what I mean, (ignoring synergies for the moment) take the barb as an example.

It seems to me that "useless skills" is the fallacy to begin with. Synergies tried to rectify that by making lower level skills boost the power of higher level skills and it works, to a degree, but the emphasis is still on a handful of powerful endgame skills. The assassin is probably the only character with very good depth, variety and usefulness of skills, with the necromancer coming in second.

Your approach is interesting in that it encourages the use of all skills and lends a definite progression to character development.

 

[Jazzmosis]

IMO, the downfall with Diablo 2 is alot of useless skills. I've been messing around in the game, trying to create oddball characters (like a chain lightning sorc, a bowmancer)

As for my "more levels" it would be virtually the same exp to get from 1-99. But of course 300 would be too much and impossible to get to.. so obviously the next game would need more acts/levels/quests/whatever... personally I liked the concept of chosing a specialty... It was boring to play as the same magic skill everytime.

 

[flame737]

Are they really going to make a Diablo "3"??? If they were it's most likely going to be like all the other games(which I probably won't like). They can always add more and more Acts,Quests, etc. with more expantions.

 

[Jazzmosis]

Are they really going to make a Diablo "3"??? If they were it's most likely going to be like all the other games(which I probably won't like). They can always add more and more Acts,Quests, etc. with more expantions.

They may, but I haven't heard anything about a Diablo 3.. if sales are there they'll make one. Blizzard won't add expansions to D2 because there's nowhere to go without a serious time gap - much like from Diablo 1 to 2.

They certainly left it open with the Worldstone.. but how exactly could they bring back Diablo (the character, not the game)?

 

[Metroid_01]

They certainly left it open with the Worldstone.. but how exactly could they bring back Diablo (the character, not the game)?

They dont need to bring back diablo...and if they really wanna include him.... lets just go down into hell and beat him there. get some amazing immortal killing weapon or somethin, like the hellforge hammer than you use to deliver the final blow to him. and i strongly belive that Eventually...diablo3 will be made. D2 was amazingly popular, and the sales are just too much for blizz to abandon. unfortunately the team that worked on d2 has more or less fallen apart so it will be some time.
the possiblilities are completely endless as to what blizzard could do in a continuation of the series, i only hope they do find some way to put real originality into this.. (synergies were definitely a great choice in that, conciter .09 with zons and barbs ruling d2...now you cant predict what you will meet, though some classes are much more popular than others.)
i think you are right though Jazz, theres no way to continue this now, the three are gone and it wouldnt make much sence for anything new to happen when ur characters JUST finished off the prime evils...save maybe the lesser evils decide to come up to the surface and have fun...or commit suicide gainst botd pallys , whatever it may be. the concept above is rather good, but it appears to cover many other classes, which would mean those classes would likely dissapear, resulting in just a couple really expansive groups.

 

[tamrend]

I'm guessing that there won't be a Diablo 3. As mentioned, the storyline has pretty much been played out. While it's true that sales often spawn sequels, in games as well as movies, there's one thing you've gotta consider. This is Blizzard. People expect great games from them, which can only be said about a very few game developers. If they decide to put out another RPG, it will probably be something completely different. Moreover, we already have World of Warcraft on the way, and I see a MMORPG as the next step up from the Diablo games.

 

[Ãœdorim]

No, it's Blizzard North.

Heh. Sorry.

 

[Tigerius]

Newcomer here but been working on a few ideas for a long time, am I to assume this is the right forum for new character concepts then?
It did seem the most appropriate spontaneously and then I found this thread.

 

[Ãœdorim]

Newcomer here but been working on a few ideas for a long time, am I to assume this is the right forum for new character concepts then?
It did seem the most appropriate spontaneously and then I found this thread.

Yes and no. I put mine here because it wasn't ever finished and because the format was different than normal. No other concepts that I know of ever changed from the D2 template all that much...

my point which I'm not getting around to all that quickly is that although you can post them here, (and if you did you might consider putting them all under one thread, as concepts are typically short and it would prevent excessive amounts of thread necromancy, kinda like how I thought this thread was finally dead but now it's not) you might want to send them straight to the dark library alongside a host of existing character concepts. If your concept is already complete, send it to tdl after you've spellchecked it. If you want feedback or to generate discussion about the concept, anywhere here is fine.

We've lots of space to spare.