That sounds awesome.

With custom kata combos, each guild will probably end up naming their most-used combos. So for example the Magnagoran monk guild, the Bloodletters, would be able to say:

"He makes great use of the Rotten Palm technique against a warrior opponent, but that strategy doesn't carry over to fighting a telepath; it seems he hasn't gotten the timing of using the Fury of Urlach move to finish him quite right."

A Glomdoring Nightstalker might say:

"The h'dai form is effective for hindering the offense of bards, and thus it's natural to flow from it into the lo'nid form, which can be used as a finisher or to further weaken your opponent for higher damage and bleeding."

And a Celestian Devout would say:

"The Hand of Elohora is a well-rounded attack suitable for opening a fight, or for keeping things moving when you're not sure what will be effective; the Hand of Shakiniel, on the other hand, is highly focused in stunning your opponent and damaging his chest region so you can move into finishing him with the powerful but slow Hand of Methrenton."

ETA: While we're in the topic of names for guilds:

Celest:

Staff Saints (By analogy with "sword saint")
Cloistered
Zealots
Eremites

Glomdoring:

Nightcrawlers
The Black Hand (There are in fact multiple black hands in fiction, though.)
Night's Hand/Crow's Talon
Sightless

Magnagora:
Gladiators
Brawlers
Murderers

Ewww... I seriously hope those don't end up being the finalized names for the Celestian forms (operating on the assumption things go as speculated). It makes Celest sound so very boring, IMO. There are such things as Tide Lords, and they could probably do with a little attention, too. Backtracking one step, the repetitive use of "Hand of " makes it worse. What are you going to do if you use Hand of Raziela? Glomp them?

Give them stupidity, duh.

But from what I think I've seen, the kata forms would be player-defined. Naming specific combos would be purely guild roleplay and not defined in the skillset. Form names wouldn't show on attack messages, I think, but from seeing a set of attacks you'd be able to identify them and guilds would probably make names for them, as a roleplay thing and so they can talk about the most common/effective combos. You would be able to name your form "Fart of Raziela" if you'd liked, though.

Or, that's what seems logical to me.

If the admin add more weapon fighting and stealthiness to the new monks, they could end up like assassins...


In which case I've always loved the name of "Inquisitors"

Magnagora definitely gets the Bloodletters, and the Tower of Insufferable Cruelty.

Attacks could have common hardcoded names, stances could have common hardcoded names, specific sequences combining them could have RP names. Given the different specializations and tertiaries, some combos will simply work better for some organizations than others. So - even though a Celestian could execute all the steps of the Rotting Palm, he couldn't combine it with the illithoid-taught followup that makes it so dangerous, and likely wouldn't bother.* Instead, he'd be better off working on his Rolling Wave sequence of throws since the Kepheran Scourge technique requires a prone foe.

Throws. And counterattacks. Should be interesting.

*Wouldn't bother, that is, except to count coup. "You call yourselves masters of the Rotting Palm? Behold, I set aside the Rolling Wave and Brilliant Cascade, and all the secret arts of the Kephera as well, and shall defeat you with your own katas alone."

(Think Xavius snapping and explaining how Hartstone saplocks work, but with in-game backbreaking involved.)

Note that no two bard guilds would be able to use the same kata forms.

Just as a note to everyone, guild names can only be a single word. If you try to make "The Fist of the Druken Monkey" as your guild name it will end up looking like "Thefistofthedrunkmonkey". Some of the guild names Verithrax has come up with are really nice, but just remember the one word rule. So "The Black Hand" would probably end up being Blackhands.

On the subject of guild names, I am fully behind the Bloodletters of Magnagora. Fits the tower theme nicely, along with the fact that we don't really have a guild emphasizing the finer points of Nifilhema: pain and torture. I refuse to be dissuaded from this idea.

For Glomdoring, I vote Nightstalkers/Nightcrawlers, with a possible nod to the Sightless. Excellent roleplay opportunity if promotion to the guild comes at the cost of plucking out an eye in a nod to Crow.

Serenwilde...mm. I like Ambushers. Fits the foresty theme nicely. I can't really come up with anything beyond that because I am not a foresty person.

Celest is tricky. On one hand, I like the Zealots. On the other hand, it seems too Antiochian for my taste. Dawnstriders are taken, unfortunately, that's a pretty decent name there. I'll get back to you on that one.

Regardless of names, I'm going to play around with Magnagora's katas. Everyone else, eh, pick something and run with it while Serenwilde actually comes up with what we'll be doing and we just sit here and circlejerk and get postcount++.



Yes, I have just sat down and pulled five things straight out of thin air. No, I don't expect them to correspond to reality. However, it's fun to brainstorm.

True. I was thinking of using the common, pre-specialization skills.

Cenobites, surely. An eremite guild is slightly self-contradictory. Though maybe high-ranking guild members who retire after being GM or GA and just wander could be eremites...

And stylites! We could have stylites! (Ialie?)

And hieromonachs, if they can take Sacraments.

And then there are plenty of other monastic traditions out there to draw names from.

Will the Serenwilde take the Buddhist naming conventions, and the Magnagorans those of the Old Man of the Mountains? And what would be fitting for Glomdoring?

ETA: Will there be an opportunity to switch styles mid-combat? I can only hope so. "You may have defeated my Monkey's Paw, Lunatic, but how will you stand before my Raging Bear?" (/Ashteru)

How is that no one has cried out for drunken boxing yet?

We have an interesting naming convention laid out actually. It's not buddhist though.

EDIT: Not that it's set in stone, it's just our preliminary idea

This is on the matter of kepheras in connection with the monk (and other) guilds:

Let me start by saying that I -like- the way kepheras are done. Their stats and the difference for male and female reflect the society they live in. I like it and I think it fits.

However, that's unfortunately also the point where the issue for me arises: If a male kephera wanted to play a wiccan for example they'd be bad at it, likewise if a female kephera wanted to play a monk they'd be bad too. That on it's on is fine, as it is within their culture too. A female kephera making as good or a better warrior than a male one.. that just wouldn't fit.

The problem is that it restricts the -player- behind the character. If you are unhappy with skills, guild, org, or even race the player has the possibility to change it. But gender can't be changed.

So I was wondering.. would it be possible please to get a way that lets you truly change your gender (like the dagger of reincarnation, or the cameo of the changeling)?

Or if something along those lines is in the planning already, then I guess my point here is moot. I just wanted to bring it up.

Seconding Aesyra's post here. Again.

Part of the reason I love being a warrior so much is that there are lots and lots of viable options, and therefore lots of different tactics available; as a telepath I had about three combos macroed, and that's all I needed to fight (this is an exaggeration).

From the initial posts on this thread, monks look like they will also have a similar variety of options, which will make them great fun to play. I'm definitely switching!

Mmph, your post was better before you edited it.

Just a thought though; there could be a psychometabolism skill that helped too, in addition to any other fixes. (An artifact would be pretty lame, it should be flexible.)

EDIT: Male kephera monks are fine to begin with so I have nothing to gain really but it should still happen!
EDIT: Or rather, we're not sure, but they do look better than the females for it.

Well if monks hadn't come out, you would have been made a poor 'dancer while I would have done great as female keph MD. Now it's the other way but the problem is the same.

Another idea I had was to make genderbend affect the stats you have. But technically genderbend is only considered 'masking' as the opposite sex, so I'm not sure how much sense it would make.. hence why I suggested an artie... Whether it's a skill or anything else though, I don't really mind I'd just like it to be -possible-.

Currently you -cannot- change gender without admin intervention... So far it made no difference as gender was a personal choice and didn't affect your gameplay (IE If you were a female loboshigaru paladin or a male one didn't matter in the least. It just reflected your personal preference of how you wanted to roleplay.)

Now however gender does matter. Hence why I'm asking if there is any possibility for something like this - skill, artifact or anything else.

Is there any chance at all? Please?

Psh, we already had this argument on the other thread...the only thing is that kephera do have lots of sexual dimorphism so it's feasible that genderbending might not cover that.

But yes, it still should be changeable in some way or other. Now that I think on it it doesn't matter too much whether it's flexible since you're not likely to change guilds that often and you can just buy another thing if you do, but it would be better as flexible anyway.

Nowhere in the skill description does it say this, nor has it been said cononically anywhere in game as far as I know. It takes five power to genderbend. That's the same amount of power it takes to, say, bond with every Great Spirit in all of nature all at once, or to open up the earth below to swallow someone whole, or to tear someone's soul from their bodies. It doesn't take any power at all to use "changeself" in illusions, which is simply changing the apparent way you look, speak, feel, etc. If genderbend was the same way, would it cost five power? I don't find it so inconcievable that genderbend acutally makes you the opposite sex. Why would such a skill be in Dramatics? Well, it's darn hard to put on a show as a character of another gender if you don't know what it's like to be a member of the opposite sex =p

I don't see why genderbend couldn't effect your stats as a Kephara from an RP standpoint. I do see why from a game balance standpoint though, yet it would give people a reason to spend the five power for the skill beyond freaking out their parents, spouses, and children.

Well I always considered genderbending to just be 'masking' as the opposite sex since it's a skill in dramatics. If it's not I'm more than happy to take that back.

I don't think it would too much to spend 5p to change to the opposite sex (including a stat change) however currently genderbending also drains your mana on a constant basis.. so I'm not sure if it's feasible to keep it up over a longer period of time or during combat. But this is a matter that could perhaps get envoy'd.

If genderbend could be changed to affect stats it would be great (and probably something that would need to be enovy'd for it to happen too). I'm just wondering if there is even a possibility that a skill, artifact or -anything- along those lines might even be considered by the administration.. if there is -any- chance at all for this.