At first, I thought it was because they don't want caster races to have more than 12 Con. Trill have 11 base Con and Merians have 10, so it would be bad if they lost any more as a caster. But then Viscanti have 14 base Con (same as Lucidians) and they don't lose any when they spec Nihilism or Geomancy.

Master Viscanti have 15 Int/14 Con and Prismatic Lucidians have, what 17 Int/12 Con? I'd take the Viscanti any day. They even have the better conditional regen: L3 regen in taint - which, for Geomancers is... just about anywhere they please.

Here's how the conversation went:

I go to deposit gold for credits and message Arte. He sends me credits.
Arte: Notice how we have unlimited credits?
Me: Yeah, that's probably due to more people buying credits from them
Arte: No, the credits aren't deducted when I transfer them. Think that's a bug?
Me: Yes, definitely a bug.

So, I have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about.

Also, Master Viscanti have level 2 magic, blunt and cutting resistance. The three most common forms of damage. They get less charisma than the other mage/guardians but they're so damn tanky that it more than makes up for it. Their only tangible downside is the sip malus, which does hurt a lot (I speak from experience here). I still hold they're up there with Elfen Lord in terms of good specialized races, though.

I agree: The loss of constitution is a bit wonky.

Today, I went down the list of races, using a set of weighted criteria (of my own devising, so definitely not perfect) to see which races would probably make the best Researchers. Note that I assigned CHA and INT a decent amount of weight over other stats, though I gave CON the most weight by a decent margin.

I determined that cloud trill are the best overall, as long as you're willing to accept that their CON isn't spectacular. Next best are kephera, followed by faelings (again, if you can accept the lackluster CON), humans, furrikins, and finally (if you're willing to be very selective at influencing and iffy with ego), illithoids.

Lucidians didn't even make my list, and for one reason: Prismatic specialization. If it had had two less points of INT and two more of CON, it would have.

Edit: Oh yeah, dracnari made the list, though just barely. I can't remember why now....

Faelings make up for low con at least with the extra sip. For damage over time, I think they're probably tankier than furrikin and other 11 con races, unless it's burst damage that kills before sip can play a factor.

Because they've got 14 base Int, 15 base Con, and 12 base Cha probably. And on that note, even Dracnari don't lose Con when they pick up Transmology/Pyromancy spec (Illuminated Dracnari: -2 Str, -1 Size, +2 Int, +1 Cha). So, at 16 Int/15 Con they have the highest base HP of all the mage/guardian spec races and a respectable Int score (not that Guardians damage kill), but are less tanky than Viscanti because they share a sip malus and Dracnari don't have the physical damage resistances.

Surged faeling vs surged aslaran, I sometimes feel I tank better as a faeling. Of course, I can't do any damage whatsoever.

Eventru has too much of a flamboyant personality to fit with Terentia, I think. She seems like a no-nonsense type.
Girls love the brooding loners, so I'd say Shikari since he's not a pushover.



Also prismatic lucidians actually lose one con, not two.

EDIT: Right now I have 13 con, 17 int, and 12 chr unbuffed.

I really have no idea what you're talking about. Lucidians are, I think, much better than Trill. They have 1 more con, 1 more int, and better resistances; that magic resistance is awesome, as are the cutting (especially since blademasters are in vogue right now) and the psychic can come in handy too. The blunt and fire weaknesses are not that big of a deal especially since there are not many bonecrushers. Trill resistances are much more situational IMO.

Also, intelligence actually doesn't matter much for researchers. What are you going to do, wand people to death?

Edit: Illithoid are also a fantastic and underrated race. With a maxed-out inner worm (which is very easy to do, it expires very slowly and lasts through logout) they have more ego than almost any other race. And they have great int/con.

The help file says they lose 2, are you sure you aren't buffed by something? If not, should probably bug that and find out whether it's a bug or a typo in the help file.

Get a netbook or some other device with a full keyboard but which is portable enough to use in cars, on buses, etc. Nothing has helped my writing more.

I'm sure I have no buffs. I bugged it. Yay for nerfing myself?

I never did like single target choke, no need for restrictions! Though if you wanted to slow down demesne effects that would be cool too. I think it was Synl who said he thought it was fixed after it couldn't be dropped in smob rooms. I agreed with that.

Yeah I love the resistances, and the con is still decent. Just the spec ends up effectively worse than unspecced because of the con penalty and int being useless for me (the char bonus is nice but I don't influence much, so only matters in revolts).



Yes it's -1.

Well, I'm a bit biased. When I made my list, I gave CHA a fair amount of weight, so that the resulting characters would also be above-average at influencing (unless this was outweighed by something else), and have respectable ego besides. Lucidian Researchers have slightly better INT and CON than trill, but trill have 4 more points of CHA. That's quite a lot. Lucidians also have significantly more racial weaknesses than trill.

That being said, you're probably right in that lucidian racial advantages are superior to trill racial advantages, but I wouldn't say that makes them "much better"... although if you disregard CHA, then lucidians are better, yes.

INT also boosts mana, and in conjunction with Spire bonus that gives you a heck of a mana pool. Some instakills are based on mana reserves, although not Gaudiguch guilds in particular. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Hmmm. Racial inaccuracy, action taking place in a static description, forcing judgments onto the viewer (i.e., handsome), grammatical errors....

Needs work!

That actually makes a lot of sense, plus it would have a delightful effect on further complicating the political alliances and enmities. However, wasn't Terentia with Amberle, or am I misremembering? (Which certainly doesn't preclude her having another lover later. Even Charune got over losing his first love to court again.)

This is how I actually weighted the stats for Researchers in my little system:

CON: +3 (per point above 12)/-3 (per point below 12)
INT and CHA: +2/-2
DEX: +1/-1 (useful in combat even on its own)
STR: +0.25/-0.25
Size: n/a (not counted)

I thought that was pretty fair, considering my extra criterion (i.e., being above-average at influencing).