Ok, here we go.
We already have two communes, so I don't want to have a straight Knight, Monk, Bard, Wiccan, Druid approach to the Ackleberry guilds. (Note: All of this is me, as an individual, expressing ideas and design preferences, and in no way reflects the goals or efforts of IRE or the Lusternian staff. I am not an IRE employee, builder, or writer, and while I would like to build for an IRE game, and I may use this work in my resume if it gets anywhere, this is primarily a preliminary brainstorming thread for things that might not even happen.)

Therefore... I am going to propose a few new archetypes. I will also be using some old ones, but in a different context, with different skillsets. Some of these archetypes might seem familiar (the Insurgent is similar to a Knight with some Stealth abilities) while others may simply seem out of place (the Magister may seem more like a Guardian than a Druid). I will only be proposing three, since I doubt the playerbase of a brand new commune could handle the five that each other organization currently has. Also, the names used are Archetype names, for now, and will likely be replaced with more 'flavorful' names given time. If it seems that the addition of three new archetypes is unnecessary, and perhaps difficult to balance, I will return to the old standards of Warrior, Druid, Wiccan, Bard, and Monk.

It may be hard to take Ackleberry seriously, with names like Honeysap and, well, Ackleberry, but I'm going to try.

As for a specced race, Furrikin seems to be the most likely candidate. Tae'dae are the other race most closely connected, and I'm not sure how you would spec a Tae'dae for combat without making it a God of War. Suggestions are welcome. (Specced races only change stats, correct?)

Insurgent
The defenders of Ackleberry since time immemorial, the Insurgents have lain dormant for years, waiting for Ackleberry to resurface as a power within the basin. With the reawakening of Mother Lake and Brother Bear, their time has come. Proud warriors, the Insurgents use the bow and the spear in combat, relying on stealth or their bonds with totems of Mother Lake and Brother Bear to live through their battles. Some Insurgents hide in the trees and rain arrows on their enemies, while others charge spear-first into battle, clad only in a coat of bearskin. Their strength lies in adaptability.

Primary Skill: Insurgency
Starting ability: Jab - Increased accuracy when jabbing with polearms.
Other abilities to include; camouflage, ability to climb trees, ability to thrust spears for greater damage at the cost of accuracy, and strike with spears for blunt damage and possibility of stun (based on skill level).

Secondary Skill: Hunting, specializing in Ecology or Tracking, possible replacement of one or the other.

Tertiary Skills: Stealth, Totems (Bear or Lake, discussed below), or Athletics
Bear Totem: Includes the ability to manifest a Bearsark, a coat of bearskin that functions as armor (starting at leather grade and gradually increasing, requiring more power to manifest at different stages.) Each new stage of the Bearsark also allows other abilities, such as Maul (an attack that causes heavy bleeding) and the ability to enter a berserk rage. Armor cannot be worn in conjunction with a Bearsark. Some abilities, such as the Totembond and similar abilities, will be independent of the Bearsark.
Lake Totem: Waterwalking, effects to cloud enemy vision in aquatic regions, manipulation of local water, manifestation of local water. (Have never used Moon or Night, so may need help thinking for analogous ideas for Lake.)



Magister
Spiritual leaders.

Outrider
Spies.


Very late hour, going to bed but will continue tomorrow. Preliminary comments welcome.

I think this thread is a few years too early. Ackleberry/Hallifax/Gaudiguch isn't coming out for a long while.

And they'll get the same archetypes as everyone else. Druid/warrior/bard/wiccan/monk

Knights with stealth = bad idea.

The specced races will most likely be tae'dae or furrikin. Probably furrikin since tae'dae suck so bad.

I'd actually imagine seeing tae'dae being warriors and furrikin being druids and wiccan. Bards and monks weren't around when Ackleberry disappeared, so it wouldn't make much sense for them to come back with some. When they come back.

This thread is a few years too early. I'm ok with that.

I can write up ideas with the same archetypes, I suppose.

Knights with stealth = bad, with rushing you mean? I think I can see where that is a problem. I intended for them to be more utilitarian, but since I forgot to add the specializations for Insurgency, I can see where that might have been lost. Would it be better if they were more like monks without kata?

I think what you would find is that creating a whole new class is a lot harder to design and balance than modular spec parts, which is presumably why the archetype system was made in the first place - it allows for a measure of variety and a measure of symmetry all at once. It's a very good concept, and throwing it away is unwise.

Now that said, bear-druids COULD stand to be more different than stag and crow druids are to each other, but probably not in this kind of way.

Btw, you can't really make athletics an option with totems, they aren't built like that. Stealth for the same reason (also it doesn't make sense, stealth is an illithoid tech.)

I'd just stick to the existing archetypes because I can pretty much assure you that's what Ackleberry and the other cities will have. Pyromancers and Illuminati and aeromancers. It's all in the history, so it'd be kind of odd to have 4 cities and two forests with all the same archetypes...and ackleberry living in it's own weird little world.

And they better only get one specced race just like the rest of us! I predict furrikin cause they are the most flexible. Tae'dae druid/wiccan wouldn't work. They'd have to lose like 8 strength and gain 7 int or something. Furrikin on the other hand have decent stats all the way around (maybe not strength) so they could go either way with specs.

edit: I've tried tae'dae druid for the record. It really, REALLY won't work.

Well, during the racial rebalancing, the admins hinted at trill and lucidians both being spec races.

Well...balls. I demand specced aslarans!

Sure, let's introduce Jojobo along with Ackleberry.

Hmm. Ok, so here's what I'll work on tomorrow.

Warrior class with Athletics as secondary (seems to be the intent) and Marksmanship as an option, along with Hunting/Tracking and Totems/Bear/Lake. Marksmanship will be the distillation of one of the specializations of Insurgency, with Lancer being the other. Marksmanship is an option I might leave out, but I'd really rather include it. What might happen is they get monks later on, with their specialization in some form of meditative archery (if they have Harmony) or enhanced sniping (if given stealth).

Druid class (never played one, might need some help with this) with the Bear side focusing on personal combat, adding to armor and resistances and allowing special attacks (similar to Stag, but more appropriately flavored). Tertiaries might include psionics, astrology, and dreamweaving instead of runes and hunting, but that remains to be seen (I'm trying to make things different where I can without breaking things.)

Wiccan class (no idea whatsoever, never played one, don't really even know what they do, besides covens and demesnes.) Lake totem may include elements of Aquamancy and Moon, but I'll look at this last. It's the one I know the least about, really.

I remember a comment a couple years ago about how they'd bring in one new org instead of two because of the workload.

Although if they do do that, it'd be a necessary evil, having two orgs on their own axis or (vaguely) on the same axis and at an angle to Magnadoring/Celenwilde would be better than one outlier org.

That sounds like more of a Hallifax thing, but could still be awesome.

Yes... that is Hallifax. I was pointing out to Celina that there is a possiblity of an organisation having two specced races.

Oh? That is interesting...

I'm going to go on with my little machinations using Furrikin as the specced Ackleberrians, (Reawakening might bring about a rename...), and keep open the possibility of specced Tae'dae or Aslaran (Those two seem the most likely candidates...)


EDIT: I've just become aware through searching that there is apparently a Lusternian policy against the inclusion of archery?

Archery has been shot down a number of times.

And I agree with the sentiments above...if a new org is released, it'll have the exact same archetypes as the ones now. Yea, it'd be cool to have completely new archetypes all at once, but realistically, that would not only be a lot of coding, but I guarantee the entire Basin will erupt in protest at all the OP/UP stuff that's all released at once.

With the archetypes rule, they can literally just design 2 new specs, for instance (lake and bear), and then design the actual commune/city, and then release it.

And I'd rather see cool new things added to things we have now than to see a brand new organization with more skills to dilute the admin's attention...

Also there's the little fact that Furrikin were balanced around being a non-spec race, as were tae'dae.

Whereas the trill and lucidians were deliberately shortchanged because they'd be a spec race eventually.

Plus, ideologically how will Ackleberry be any different than Serenwilde?

It's pretty unlikely Ackleberry will ever open, even more unlikely than Hallifax/Gaudiguch (which will also never happen barring a monstrous surge in population on the order of a double/tripling up)

Bearsark
Master
0%
Requires 5 power, 5 leather, and the corpse of a bear. Gives armor equal to leather. SYNTAX: FASHION BEARSARK
Growl
Master
33%
Slows denizen balance recovery for a short period of time. Uses equilibrium, requires balance. SYNTAX: GROWL
Bonding
Master
66%
8P: Bond with a Living Totem (unchanged from Stag)
Hibernation
Gifted
0%
While sleeping, you gain additional regeneration to health and endurance.
Grizzly
Gifted
33%
The Bearsark now provides armor equivalent to chain, along with cold resistance and damage reduction.


How do these look, for preliminaries?


EDIT: Given the consensus that Ackleberry won't open for a good long time, if ever (And I agree, in terms of playerbase, and the fact that Ackleberry would have a rough time fitting into politics), this can be moved to another part of the forum and I'll just use it for writing flavor for possible guilds, since I'm quite sure I don't know enough about abilities to even come up with hypothetical abilities for a non-existent guild.

Druids don't get psionics. Or Astrology. Astrology is for wiccans/guardians.

I know you are trying to make ackleberry super unique for whatever reason, but it will follow the same rules the rest of the orgs have.

Wiccans don't get demesnes either. They have fae and covens.

Yeah, for some reason I thought that Wiccans were the demesne users. That's what I get for posting at 4 in the morning.

For now, what I'm just going to do is write up possibilities for the Warrior guild, mainly Lake and Bear, and possibly some flavor for them. I don't know enough about Druids and Wiccans to even pretend to write up abilities for them. I probably won't go as far with it as I originally intended, since the more I look at Ackleberry and the Honeysap Tree, the more I see Winny-the-Pooh. And it makes me sad.

I'd make a try for Hallifax and Gaudiguch, but I would want to be more familiar with their workings, and more familiar with classes I haven't used yet. So I'll stick with the Hundred Acre Wood for now.

(The thought of Ackleberry as a new commune is actually beginning to scare me, since it sounds like it would become even more of a snuggly furryfest than Serenwilde.)

Honeyguard FTW.