Monks!

Aah, they all look the same to me.

yay Illithids!

I think I might be one of the earlier mages (other than novices/near novices) to switch to Illithoid, mostly because the RP of it is so awesome. I agree that I would like to see an int increase, and possibly even charisma increase. The very nice part about the increase is that if you get your current ego way up, then let your max ego decay back to the normal point, id balance is insane. The problem is that every attack drains ego, and that mindblast is 100% magical source, so while id will be very fast, you still can't do much damage to your enemies. I haven't tested vampirism yet, it still might be perfectly viable even with the low int. The high con and underground regen are very nice, I can kill most of the creatures I've come across in the Undervault alone at level 78 (I haven't fought adoraths much yet, but I don't expect they'll be too bad with the lvl 2 psychic resistance).

The downsides: My staff damage is pathetic now - it took me two hits to kill a novice with only ~600 health and no defs/resilience. I imagine even with high health, any moondancer could kill me in 2-3 hits, since mages already have very little resistance to magic damage. Even with my magicproofed robes, Gehn was doing over 1k damage with a moonburst when I was a human. I suspect he'd be closer to 1200-1400 or so now (out of my 4.1k max), and Krellan could probably do well over 2k. The moonburst damage formula basically seems to assume that the target will have some magic resistance, since it seems to have the highest raw, undeffed damage of any attack I can think of. For this race to be viable for telepath combat, it would need a bonus to intelligence, which could come at the cost of con or dex, as well as a magic defense for mages other than greatrobes. I suppose biofeedback could work, but it's worthless in combat.

Anyway, I'm basically limited in combat for awhile, but I look forward to a lot of bashing in the new amazing Undervault! Titan, here I come! Also, keep in mind that all of our comments and suggestions in this thread are probably jumping the gun. Supposedly the kephera/illithoids have more to teach us if we keep helping them. As amazing as all of this is, there might still be more to come!

You know, judging by what you said, I'm not sure you are. You never seriously need your staff in battle. Not against anyone competent. Your main aim is mindblasting incessantly, while whoring a variety of extremely irritating hidden afflictions. Spank someone with enough addiction and fast enough mindblasts, and mindburst is your oyster. Mindblast damage may be bad, but at the higher combat tiers, you're not really going to be killing with damage. You're looking for that ego instakill, or to mess them up sufficiently that chasm becomes possible.

Edit: And if you trans magic, that racial susceptibility will be entirely annulled.

This is mostly true, but the damage that mindblast does to all three stats is based on intelligence. So, low intelligence means I drain less of their ego each time. I think using the ego trick could be very nice if I have a demesne, then spam a lot of afflictions at the beginning of the fight (using it a bit like quickening to stick afflictions almost at the rate of hexes). My ego drains pretty quickly, though, so I have to get them into mindburst range as quickly as possible. Against most competent fighters, I'm not sure how possible that will be with the low intelligence, even if I get a few good afflictioins in. I haven't actually tested it much yet, though, I'll try to get some spars in and post logs for people to see.

Ah. Bugger.

It sort of annoys me that the RP of the race makes them basically restricted to Magnagora in the long term.

Umm, basically for the same reason Celest and Serenwilde don't accept them. They are spawns of the soulless. They even don't have souls when they die, so they are still soulless.


edit: I was responding by a phantom post by Fain.... *peer*

DISCLAIMER: The following is the player of Fain's opinion, and nothing resembles an agreed upon administrative "legislation". This is also assuming that the reason Glom doesn't like Illithoids is because Viravain doesn't like them. If I am wrong, this opinion does not apply.

I'm not quite sure why Glomdoring won't accept Illithoids? As far as I know, Viravain has made it expressly clear that she ONLY cares about Illithoids in her order, but the commune can do as it pleases.

Aren't we trying to avoid the actions of the past? If so, buck up and make some of your own decisions, Glomdoring! Viravain has been good, of late, as far as I can tell, about understanding the fact that we, patrons, are only to act as advisors. Our word is NOT law. Our word is ADVICE.

I totally thought you were talkin to yourself!

Who said Glomdoring wasn't making their own decisions? Viravain made it clear that she just wasn't going to allow the illithoids in her order which really doesn't effect Glom one bit. Personally, I can't see the roaches or the soulless runts living in Glomdoring. Both are pretty vile and not even in a Blacktalon sort of way vile. The fact that one seems intent on just lounging around at the Master Tree and seems to be waiting for some sort of conflict arising from his race really doesn't help their cause at all.

That's still Glomdoring's RP more than the race's RP. Glom could just as easily look and say that the Illithoids are clearly not a single, indivisible, powerful being that poses any threat anymore. It is splintered, and as we've seen in several cases the splintered forms of the gods can be much different than the original god was. Glomdoring chooses not to allow them because that's how they perceive they should act.

I think the Glomdoring continually surprises the Admin. They seemed to design this encourage Glom to accept the illithoids and reject the kephera, and somehow Glomdoring ended up at the opposite conclusion. It's interesting and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but we should recognize that it is, in fact, a player decision, and not anything in the design or RP of the race.

I'm not so sure they're accepting Kephera, seeing as the Kephera were the ones to decimate their forest, so it seems to me that they'll be refusing both of the new races. Am I wrong?

I have no clue why people think Glom bans Illithoids. O.o We are closer to banning Kephera than Illithoids, actually.

Not all Gloms trust the Illithoids though. Lucan really wishes they wouldn't have been accepted into Glomdoring, but not much he can do about it.

I haven't had a chance to log in beyond reading news/messages lately, so I haven't explored the Undervault at all. Bearing that in mind, do we know if the Illithoids are controlled by the inner worm, or if it's a symbiotic type relationship?

I'm going to be arguing for banning (or HEAVILY restricting) kephera and allowing the illithoids. After all, I haven't seen the illithoids spreading taint or raping elder goddesses. Sure, they eat things - so does everyone else. They're just more dramatic about it.

The kephera, on the other hand, killed Crow. Bastards. And they apparently knocked down the Drums, as well.

Fain - if this is the revamped conflict quests coming back - that was really sudden.

Hm

This all seems very confused.

Banning Kephera in Glomdoring is stupid. Sure, the Kephera burned down part of Glom, yadda yadda yadda. Thus it makes perfect sense to ban and kill those kephera who remain loyal to the hives in the undervault. However, Kephera who have left the hives to dwell in Glomdoring might reasonably be supposed to owe their loyalty to Glomdoring.. in which case.. who cares.

Hating Illithoids makes far more sense. There is a good reason behind that, in the same way that there is a good reason behind Magnagora's hatred of Elfen and Merian. When the Elder God (or Soulless) who shatters is monumentally untrustworthy, and the shards might reasonably be expected to inherit the same sort of character traits, then the shards should not be trusted. Equally, the Viscanti are tainted - Celest wishes to purge the world of taint, QED - perfectly good reason.

But, unless you can find some racial reason, irrespective of what might be supposed to be political maneuvering, and irrespective of affiliation, then there is no good reason to ban a race. RPing for that only makes sense if your character is either a little stupid, or you play a fanatic.

My iilithoid warrior has 15 intelligence so not bad there.... just his str is -shudder-


Aiakon, Kephera killed Crow.