Hey guys, I have a better idea: integrate thornlash and bleeding!

Some of this might or might not work in conjuction with Elryn's stuff, which is mostly quite good (although I think being able to store 3000 damage is a bit much, probably needs reducing).

Sapcurse: Would replace sap. 3p, uncurable, lasts like 45 seconds or something. Whenever you (the target) clot bleeding, it turns into sticky sap that rolls around on your skin, with the following results (these numbers probably need some adjustment by someone who knows more about the cudgel bleeding amounts than I, this is just to give some idea of the effects):
500 bleeding clotted: Clotting costs 10 more mana.
1000 bleeding clotted: 1-second delay on movement, like rubble.
1500 bleeding clotted: Cannot use enchantments.
2000 bleeding clotted: Slows writhing by 1 second.
2500 bleeding clotted: Level 1 slow balance/eq, opens up to Ambertrap.

Ambertrap: 5p 6-second timed instakill. Requires level 5 sapcurse, cannot do anything else while performing it, stopped by the things that stop judgment. When it finishes, the opponent is permanently trapped in amber and dies, leaving behind a fun room corpse like preserve's.

I think this is probably overpowered so feel free to critique it.

Oh, and please, for the love of God: NO MORE NEW AFFLICTIONS.

Yeah, there's always enough time to toss one mote after you puncture. With nothing effecting your speed, I think recovery from puncture aura takes about 1 second. The only way to cure punctured aura before they can toss a mote is with focus spirit, which costs 1/4 mana. If you see someone has triggered that, though, you can puncture aura 4x and drain all their mana.



Or buy the artifact that prevents wind from knocking you around. 150cr I believe.



and Sham, I think that suggestion is amazing. I would love to see druids more focused around bleeding kills.

Assuming averaged bleeding amounts from cudgel at trans and thorns being active in the demesne, 3580 is the most bleeding you can cause in 45 seconds.

I'm not sure where to go with this one. I don't like attrition kills, but I like the general idea.

EDIT: The thousands column is the wrong place for a typo.

As I have it, it's not an attrition kill - an attrition kill is something like sleep deprivation or willpower draining that takes an immense amount of time to do but is virtually impossible to cure in the middle of the fight. This sapcurse thing requires you to pump out as much bleeding as you can in 45 seconds, and would go away after 45 seconds if you haven't killed them by then, requiring you to start over.

I like the idea behind ambertrap, that's nifty. Not sure about sapcurse being the route, I don't know enough about bleeding amounts and how many clots you can do in 45 seconds, but it sounds pretty cool.


As for delaying cures, what if there was a skill like..

Constrict (1p): Causes a constrictor vine to lash around the victims throat, cured with ignite self. While the throat is constricted, any time the victim bleeds for more than 300, blood wells up in their mouth and causes elixirs, herbs and smoke cures to have no effect (or a 75% fail rate?) until they SPIT BLOOD, requiring balance.

Edit: Actually, that's not very synergistic. Maybe no powercost and a salve cure rather than ignite? Meh.

Doesn't work on sylphs. That's what that equation means-- "It's not wind, it's a sylph."

Treent - Spend 5 power to animate a tree. One per caster. Removed with mulch, chopping or attacking it. You can give it the following orders on it's own balance.:

TREENT GRAB
Grabs someone in the room with it's arms and holds them. Writhe to get out of it's hands. You cannot writhe free of thornlash while grabbed.

TREENT THROW
TREENT THROW
Throws whoever your trenet is holding in a given direction as far as they can go. They end up in the sky. If they cannot fly, they fall. You can also throw them into the sky of your current room. Triggers thornlash damage.

TREENT ROOT
TREENT UNROOT
Treent plants itself. Acts like rubble in every direction, both entering and leaving. The tree cannot move in this form and acts like a dryad. Unroot makes it stand back up.

Xavius's new version of sap is also pretty cool.

I like this concept of this thread a lot.

I love this thread.
One question, though: Out of demesne effectiveness, how to improve it?
As I understand it, the demesne reliance is what people find a turn off, possibly moreso than the monotony of playstyle (since you only notice the monotony once you're actually a druid, whereas the heavy demesne reliance is an obvious, visible deterrent to outsiders).

The purpose of this thread to to make Druidry more interesting... but interesting Druidry =/= interesting druids. Personally, I think Ecology, Dreamweaving and Runes, if brought up to the quality of Psionics, could make things a lot more interesting and tone down the demesne reliance that people seem to dislike. Make the tertiaries vary between demesne independence/synergy, and adjust Druidry accordingly.

So you could have Ecology have powerful demesne synergy that makes an in-demesne kill much easier, but outside of a demesne is mostly utility skills. Ie, many bleeding effects for sapcurse, abilities to reinforce briarwalls or buff up treants and stuff.
Make Runes have a balance of synergy and independence... perhaps add some kind of instakill that you could feasibly fall back on if your Druidry kill sequence fails or whatever. Ie, you can sapcurse and build up for amberthingy, and if the instakill condition on runes is reached meanwhile, you can pull it off instead.
Dreamweaving should be a skillset you can kill people with outside of a demesne, like Psionics... but make it so that you cannot build up a Druidry instakill (ie, the sapcurse or whatever) and a Dreamweaver instakill at the same time. Ie, make a lot of the current 'dreambody only' skills usable while awake (including Eternalsleep), but make it so that you can't get them with eternalsleep if they've got sapcurse, they're bleeding over an amount, or if there's embedded motes in the room.

I'm not sure how doing that would effect mages... I can't see them being much stronger with these than they'd be with Psionics... though we might see more mage Dreamweavers and Runists who like the skill flavour but don't want to be crappy in combat. Ecology would end up a crappy choice for Bards, but all bards are Illusionists anyway, being that it's more fun RP and combat wise.

Also: cudgel needs to do higher damage for bashing. Leaving the medium damage + bleeding for PK is fine, as long as the bleeding thing becomes an instakill condition.

Druid defence: Make Crow/Stagform have some kind of extra magical sparkly defensive power, not just regen or whatever it currently is.

I like the ideas. They still aren't necasarry. Nothing I've read makes druids more mobile or tanky. Instead you give them less effective skills? You know what it's going to be like trying to bleed out a warrior with 7k health? Druids aren't tanky enough to survive that long against warriors. Or monks. Actually...any class that can throw out decent damage.

Also, I've heard from every druid combatant that runes > dreamweaving....but blackout is amazing for sticking sap. Passive Narcolepsy mote, one deepsleep, blackout, entangle of some sort (vines/web/both) sap, demesne....or shieldstun until demesne hits. It's amazingly effective.

The way I've always viewed it, there's two saplocks.

One, with Runes, is more 'concrete'. It stacks and bases on afflictions that actually, mechanically hinder curing. Anorexia, impatience, asthma, your typical vlock. As such, it's usually more costly and difficult to pull off.

Dreamweaving is a bit softer. Stack up daydreaming, epilepsy, narcolepsy, clear up their kafe/insomnia. The afflictions don't provide solid blocks to curing, they just 'influence you away from it'. No balance/eq to cleanse, sleeping too much to unprone yourself, all that.

I vote for the big N's idea.

Actually, you can create a very solid dreamweaving sap lock. Epilepsy, daydreaming, webbed, paralysed, sap, and narcolepsy. They won't cure out of it if you watch their sleeping and waking.

...enlighten me?

just to make it so though don't automatically wake up from being fully rested.

Admittedly, yes, it's very solid. However, they -can- cope with it if you aren't strong enough offensively. Take, for instance, a spar I did with Thoros. I had him passing out, epilepsy, daydreaming, sap, all that in demesne. I had him bleeding for 3.6k. Still couldn't kill him! He kept tumbling out of demesne, so I just gave up. And metawake. Grr, metawake.

(In foresight, I should have whored Undoing motes to get rid of metawake. We should both abuse that, now).

As for deepsleep..small power cost, 3p. You don't have to wait and bide your time for the full 15p to get them collapsing. Guess it's just an incremental thing, considering sleepmist does the same thing but over a larger period of time.

Never understood that. You'd think that being slept by a skill would keep you asleep until you do WAKE.

If, for some reason, you aren't going through attrition-sleep, they can still stay asleep long enough to dream, which recovers a decent portion of their tiredness. Thus, if you don't make sure their tiredness is down, they'll be automatically waking up as if there's metawake since they're fully rested.

3.6k bleeding and metawake? I smell an easy mana kill.

edit: does harstone have a mana kill? I don't have any idea, I have swoop and caw to drain mana/kill. And I have been wanting to incorporate undoing motes. Did you add amnesia and entangle? Curse scrolls for stupidity and scabies?