Preview 2 Dark Gifts

[l_remmie]

Wildmage has tought me that ANY of those debuffs are significant or even deadly a lot of the time.
Slow, blind, no dmg for 6 seconds, it matters.
It's annoying in a party and soloing it's downright unplayable without jibbers.

The buffs however are ALWAYS neglectable.
Literally zero of them have any measure of effect on a quest.

Drawback game design is tricky. People hate it in general and only the truly powerful buffs gets used or the drawbacks that can be worked around.

 

[SquireZed]

My impression is that *most* of these are not worth the opportunity cost for most builds. A lot of builds are relatively feat thirsty and can't just drop a feat in, and while *most* of the tradeoffs are worth the tradeoff directly, they aren't worth missing out on a traditional feat pick. It's also very hard to evaluate the tradeoff, even for veteran players, if we just know an effect has "a small chance"- a small chance could be 1%, it could be 10%, those are very different in terms of economy to the point where a feat like Echoing Soul might be "worth it" on a 1% chance for the saving throw bonuses but "not worth it" on a 5% chance depending on how the effects are distributed.

However, just being "worth the tradeoff" isn't worth it when you look at the choice between these dark gifts and taking just a plain old normal feat. The opportunity cost of taking a feat that doesn't prereq your high level feats and comes with a drawback for benefits that are, to be frank, mostly fine but replaceable with gear, entirely optional for your build, or very niche just doesn't quite move the needle on builds. I can think of a few builds where these feats might find a spot, like Mist Walker or Touch of Death.

I feel like the economy around these feats neglects how severe the cost of missing a feat is for most builds. If this was an *optional* feature for characters to pick in addition to other feats, the actual feats themselves suddenly become a lot more palatable, but otherwise I think some of these feats need some tuning as well as more transparent information on proc rates. I will never pick a build option that tells me there's a "small chance" of something that could get me killed happening without knowing the proc rate. Immobilize at the wrong time can be absolutely devastating, and while I would love to have a huge boost to saving throws being afraid/blinded/immobilized in a room full of mobs can end a run. Especially if there's no cooldown and they can chain, since being immobilized gets rid of mobility options.

Anyway, I have a very hard time, as these feats are, possibly justifying axing a feat in any of the builds I'm familiar with to take any of these, and while I could see making a new build around a couple I'm not confident they'd be, well, any good.

 

[Venatori d' Argonnessen]

I really enjoy concepts like this where you gain something at the cost of something else, so here are some (more) fun ideas (to me)

All weapons you wield are favored weapons, you are permanently affected by intercession
Gain 10% movement speed, all yellow bars (search, opening doors, chests, etc) take 20% longer
Spell cooldowns are reduced by 20%, spell costs are doubled
You are immune to cc, you are dimensionally anchored (also cant click other peoples dd?)
You always hit (even on a 1), whenever you take damage you are afflicted by 3s of blindness
Gain 20% armor class, your items take double durability damage
Your spells always crit, you can only cast in melee range (as epic defensive fighting used to be)

Pretty sure there could be a cool penalty to dodge (ie: you cannot dodge), but I dont know a good bonus to go with it so /shrug

Thanks!

 

[Putti]

I think these should at least be toggleable. Some of them you might not want to use while solo, but are fine to use in group content or vice versa.

 

[mikarddo]

I think these should at least be toggleable. Some of them you might not want to use while solo, but are fine to use in group content or vice versa.

That would go against the core of the idea though.

 

[Dendrix Deathblade]

• Echoing Soul
  • Your soul is fractured, shifted, or connected to another in some way. Perhaps your past or future is affecting your present soul, or perhaps some other entity is inextricably linked with you. In any case, it manifests in knowledge and fears that aren't your own.
  • +3 to all Skills plus an additional 1 for every 2 Character Levels you have
  • +1 to all Saving Throws, plus an additional 1 for every 3 Character Levels you have
  • When you get hit with Melee or Ranged attacks, there is a very small chance your Echoing Soul will cause you to become Afraid, Blinded, or Immobilized for six seconds with no save. Immunities to these conditions do not apply to this effect.

Without knowing what the very small chance is as an actual % I will never ever take this feat on any character.

You might consider 1% to be very small. I don't
I don't consider 0.1 % to be very small.

Well done, you have designed a feat that I will never ever take. What a waste of your time.

Can I suggest you take a look an any D&D rule book. They never in any one of them use phrases like you do. The numbers are explicit. Make your number explicit.

SHOW YOUR WORKINGS

 

[azrael4h]

If I'm reading this right, only the Dark Bargainer is getting a feat slot for these. Otherwise it's a normal feat slot?

Kinda limits them to Fighters, Wizards, Alchemists, and Artificers (or builds relaying on those classes heavily), as on pretty much any other class I've never had the feats to fit in any extras. Even then, my build sheets don't show much room for any additions without some serious consideration.

Echoing Soul seems useful on trapper builds, I'm generally always up for wings so Mist Walker might be okay depending on the percent chance of being exhausted, and I could see making good use of Webtouched. Maybe Living Shadow? That seems like it's going to be buggy.

 

[Belenian]

Great concept! I really like that great power comes with great risk. However, I do not like the approach of random = risk. I much prefer "Touch of Death"-like feats. Here are a couple of ideas:

Dark Essence
A Djinni offered you great power and you accepted. Paying a price was never part of the deal. Maybe it wasn't a Djinni after all.

• You permanently lose 1% of of your maximum hit points per level.
• You gain 1 pact dice every 2 levels.

Cursed Dreams
You have always had trouble sleeping and when you did your dreams were plagued by vivid nightmares. When a voice told you, it could take the nightmares from you, you struck a bargain.

• You do not sleep anymore and cannot rest at rest shrines.
• You regenerate 4 hit points and 1 spell point per 2 character levels every 2 seconds.

Forged by Lightning
When working in an alchemist's lab as a summer job, you got struck by lightning. Ever since, your metabolism and speed has increased by so much, it hurts your body!

• When in a quest or wildernesse zone, you lose 2 hit points per level every 2 seconds (doubled for epic levels).
• Your movement speed and attack speed increases by 1% for every level up to level 20.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

I feel Patience should be on this feat list.

Also, dark bargains... Aren't we supposed to be the good guys??

 

[justin credible]

I feel Patience should be on this feat list.

Also, dark bargains... Aren't we supposed to be the good guys??

there seems to be an awful lot of this going on recently, blightcaster, dark apostate, tieflings, vampires.
I'm surprised the paladin archetype wasnt antipaladin

 

[dozensnakes]

I love the concept of a feat with trade offs, I feel giving us the percentages for this is warranted.

I also prefer passive effects to clickable ones with long cooldowns. Those feel like they should be potions or items over feats.

 

[zandoe]

Bring back the old tree build animation as something, reuse Vecna Unleasheds Nightmares sword animation etc. so these will look cool. Big Tree Big Dps burst should drain own hp or something similar; Death Knights fire energy burst will real dps, Power Word Kill clicky etc. so little more innovation with these people. Most horrible drawback is of course that "guild chat is broken" message & implementation

 

[SteelStar]

I feel Patience should be on this feat list.

Also, dark bargains... Aren't we supposed to be the good guys??

There are lots of reasons a non-Evil character might have taken a Dark Gift. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft gives us the following:

The Dark Powers influence many who struggle within their clutches, tempting both the innocent and ambitious with whispered promises. These sinister bargains are rarely spoken, coming in dreams or mysterious visions, but their terms are always clear and their prices terrible.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

There are lots of reasons a non-Evil character might have taken a Dark Gift. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft gives us the following:

The Dark Powers influence many who struggle within their clutches, tempting both the innocent and ambitious with whispered promises. These sinister bargains are rarely spoken, coming in dreams or mysterious visions, but their terms are always clear and their prices terrible.

That still seems pretty evil to me. Just because you're tempted by the dark side doesn't mean you give into it.

Please understand I'm not being preachy here (FWIW I'm not in the slightest bit religious IRL) and my original comment was intended to be more than a little tounge in cheek.

If we're getting to be the baddies, that's fine. After all, we've murdered enough mobs on a daily basis to make Ghengis blush, and had a whale of a time doing so!

 

[plantpower]

Also not a fan of the RNG drawbacks, especially without stating the chances. Feels like "you died because the dungeon master said so" when they actually go off. And you don't even get the illusion of being in control by rolling for it, because that would reveal the probabilities.

 

[axel15810]

Today we're taking a look at a new set of feats planned for release with the Lamordia Expansion Pack: Dark Gift Feats.

How can I get Dark Gift Feats?

• Currently anyone can take a Dark Gift as a trainable feat. This is set up this way for ease of testing, and is temporary for this preview.
• The eventual plan is the Dhampir Dark Bargainer Iconic gets a Racial Feat Slot to take a Dark Bargain feat for free. (In fact, they must take one, but that is not in this build)
• Dark Gift Feats are all ML1.
• A character may only have one Dark Gift feat. (but that limitation is not in this build)
• Fred will function with Dark Gifts though once their implemented on the Dark Bargainer correctly you will only be able to swap out a Dark Gift for another.

I'm confused - is the intention for these feats to be available to only the dark bargainer iconic, or is the intention for these feats to be available as an option to all races/classes as a general feat? I think the former is what you mean based on how I'm reading this but not 100% sure and I think a lot of people in the thread are confused about this as well.

 

[Teh_Troll]

As something of a guideline for balance discussions:

Dark Gifts in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (our p&p base for this feature) grant power with a heavy drawback or significant risk.

The idea is the same here - they should be significantly stronger than the average ML 1 feat, but if you're using it for its benefit, you must not be able to completely negate the risk or drawback.

They should be tempting, but not "the drawback is too bad to ever use" and definitely not "this is always worth taking because the risk/drawback is negligible".

These suck, nobody will use them. Waste of dev hours that should have been spent nerfing crossbows.

 

[Torc]

I'm confused - is the intention for these feats to be available to only the dark bargainer iconic, or is the intention for these feats to be available as an option to all races/classes as a general feat? I think the former is what you mean based on how I'm reading this but not 100% sure and I think a lot of people in the thread are confused as well.

1. These feats exist only for Dark Bargainer as a bonus feat that is taken at character creation.

2. To make testing easier and to get around a temporary issue with the iconic setup we made them general feats for this build, but this is not how they'll ship.

Hence the confusion. Sorry!

-Torc

P.S. This feedback reminds me of wild magic a bit and patience. I suggest people quickly try them out in client. Some of them are hard to evaluate from a forum post. We are shooting for a thematic feeling of you are getting a significant perk but every now and then you do feel like cursing the dark powers!

P.P.S As some have already noted I think you'll find Mist Walker is your easy go to if you don't really wanna deal with that concept but otherwise want to play this warlock.

 

[Terranigma]

Situations I would consider taking the following:

Echoing Soul
Up to +20 on all skills and +12 on all Saves (at level 34) is potent. Being unable to act for 6 seconds, decent potential to die. I'd be ok to take this on some casters (for the indirect +20 Spellpower and shore up their generally lacking Saves) or a buff-oriented character. At least the 3 downsides aren't a 100% guarantee of death. I can cope with Blind, being Afraid still allows movement, and being Immobile still allows leaps and actions.

Living Shadow
For melee, I'm considering this. An overall 3% damage loss is tolerable for the ability to not get hit while attacking, or being able to hit stuff in melee that you may be chasing. Back when we had the old Two-Handed Weapon animation I used to make heavy use of the longer range of the "attack while moving" animation to hit Air Elementals without being subjected to their knockdowns, so I'm no stranger to the benefit this can provide.

Mist Walker
Seems like the generalist choice I would take if no other option was enticing. Having the option of a Leap, even with consequence, can be very handy. The consequence seems to help prevent it from being an overtly obvious choice to speed through dungeons. It may be worth ensuring the drawback doesn't work in public/non-hostile locations.

Touch of Death
Highly specific. Amazing for solo or static groups. Polarizing to use in a group situations.

Form of Pain
If the bonus was PRR, MRR, and MRR Cap, I would likely use this on some level capped characters. 10% Spell Cost increase isn't the biggest drawback especially with SLAs being prevalent. 10% movement speed reduction can be annoying, but manageable. However, the movement speed reduction does make this a very deliberate choice.

Webtouched Wretch
Like many others, without knowing the extent on how negative the weakened slow effect is to oneself, I'm not giving this much thought yet.

Minion of the Eldritch
Currently a forgettable Dark Gift in my eyes, due to the large cooldown and being an extra buff to manage.

 

[DBZ]

I see the iconic are gettting these great feats any reasons why the base race shouldn't also