Though I have no idea what "Semiotics" is, I will say looking forward toward new expansions, we'd probably be more inclined to add more tertiary skill choices than anything else.

Limiting offensive gems to only one person like fae is a great idea, I approve. That way, there is more justification for buffing the individual effects so you don't end up with crap like 50 bleed bloodstones.

Only problem I have is that the name Harmonics is so similar to Harmony. I thought it was gonna be called Continuity!

Or if it's possible, the offensive gems could have a direct attack which does more than it does now because it's concentrated, and the group ability is lesser/on par with what it is now? I haven't tested so I don't know how well they do at the moment.

I think that is a fantastic idea.

Maybe instead of directly boosting the gemstones, we could have the wands do something more to correspond with which gemstone it is made of.

For example:
SPIN WAND with an onyx wand would mimic the effect of an onyx tick, but direct it at that person.

We could have the wands behave in a passive tick akin to how the gemstones spin. Skills like Amethyst healing, and Jade/Garnet mana drain would last in proportion relative to how many charges said gem has at the time of spinning your wand. Let's say 1/10th.

So if you have 150 charges(including your wand bonus) with an amethyst wand and you spin it, you'll gain a bonus of 15 charges translated into a healing aura that would last that long on whichever target you desire.

Here is where it gets a bit complicated. Because skills like Mendingstone use multiple stones in order to function(in this case garnet and jade), the character using a garnet or jade wand would receive half the amount of charges.

Lets say Saran is using a jade wand and he spins towards himself, giving him 15 charges of mana regeneration. Then he spins Mendingstone. Because he is equipped with a gemstone wand correlating to the ones needed for the skill, the healing cloud in the room gains a charge of 8 ticks(That would be 1/5th of jade's 150 starting point rounding up).

That sounds sort of tricky, but it would add an element of "math" people have been whining for. It also fleshes out the issue of a lack of bonding to the Spheres, allowing people to feel more specialized with what they want to do in a combat situation.

In tandem with this, the effects of a wand spin could be slightly more powerful than that of a regular spin.

I won't lie that I'd be pretty upset if one of the new guilds got a new tertiary before Druids, who have needed it for a LONG time.

Transmology's learn messages still mention this, and it sounds really interesting!

Would it be absolutely impossible to move Harmonics a little away from the Ioun Stone focus? Personally, I find the thought of having tons of gem zooming around your head to be pretty nifty, if a bit like Wicca, but I think a lot of flavour could be gained by doing some minor adjustments to what we already have.

Personally, I'd love it if we gained the gem harvesting abilities very early, then, later on you could combine the gems. However, instead of combining gems into one-shot effects as we currently do, it'd be awesome if the gems were instead used to create tools. For example, instead of making a glorygem, you make a tachyon wrench that you can use several times for the same effect. The goal being that eventually, you end up making a whole toolbelt. It adds a bit more "sciency" feel to Harmonics, creates a system for easily adding new skills, and it adds some engineer-flavour into the mix, which would be very awesome methinks.

This would be awesome.

I like the idea of the engineering flavor and more of a science-y feel.

Heh, another Jack Vance fan? (Or you just getting ioun stones from D&D?) If you haven't read any Dying Earth stories (written in the 1950s!), you'll certainly see where Gary Gygax & Co. (and most of modern fantasy) was heavily inspired.

I think your 'gem tools' idea is interesting, though should focus on harmonic vibrations. If you wish to develop it more, we'll listen to it. I will note that easily being able to do multiple glorygem/malefactgems in a row may be overpowered. Also, creating new objects just for the sake of creating new objects is something we try to avoid (we really don't want to unnecessarily add items to the database) and I'm not sure mechanically if it's a good idea that switching between wand, wrench, screwdriver to use tools is optimal. Ultimately, Harmonics should be mostly passive (like other guardian primary skills) and tertiary skillsets should still be the go-to skill for direct actions in combat.

Anyway, that was a bit of stream of consciousness on my part. Thinking about it, toolbelts and tools may be more interesting in theory than in actuality so I'd need quite a bit of convincing that it's really a direction we'd want to go. I would be more inclined that instead of a wand, you choose between different tools which have slightly different effects as the main weapon (each tool maybe corresponds to a different scientific 'path'?).

I'll be quiet now. Carry on!

Another cool idea would be to look to Radionics and Psychtronics for inspiration... the sort of new agey combination of science and mysticism.

Radionics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionics

Psychotronics: http://www.welz.us/

The idea being, you use your crystals and such to craft some kind of psychotronic generator that you can use (wield?) to create various effects.

This conjured terrifying images in my mind.

The more I think about it, the more psychotronics suits this kind of vibe.

You would take your crystals and maybe some form of box or container, put your crystals in that container and use it to produce various effects.

Examples:

Turquoise replacement:

GENERATOR TUNE FOR ABSORPTION (same effect as spinning a turquoise gem)

GENERATOR ADJUST TREND PSYCHIC
GENERATOR ADJUST TREND BLUNT - These all adjust the type of damage reduction
GENERATOR ADJUST TREND FIRE

GENERATOR ADJUST INTENT SELF - This trend will target the self
GENERATOR ADJUST INTENT ALLIES - This trend will target allies
GENERATOR ADJUST INTENT - This trend will target a specific person

Ruby replacement:

GENERATOR TUNE FOR BALEFIRE AT (same effect as spinning a ruby gem) - surrounds the target with 1 "balefire field"

This way, first off, you're only creating 1 new item, the generator. Second off, you allow tuning trends on some abilities to create different effects. Also, by allowing the adjustment of intent you allow people to choose whether they want a powerful targeted effect or a weakened broadly targeted one.

The idea being you could select a configuration for your generator... it could be really good at some things but weak in others, or, it could be average at most things... it would all depend on the configuration of crystals you were stocking it with.

I was iffy about using tools and the like in Harmonics but the more I think about it the more appealing it gets. If the concern is that it'd add too much to the database then perhaps the tools don't even have to be 'real' - e.g. you make a crystal antennae and then stick it in the ground and it causes a passive effect (we have skills like that already). Or maybe they can also be used as 'add-ons' to your wand, imitating the pathways while making our weapon more versatile.

Only a few skills and descriptions would change but I think that'd be really awesome.

I am intrigued.

I actually like that idea.

Protip: Less convoluted the idea, the better.

The concept of a crystal-based generator isn't really any more convoluted than anything else that already exists. It's far less convoluted, than say, Astrology.

It's essentially just a rewrite of the syntax to give it more a aesthetically consistent vibe while creating a few new syntaxes that would allow targeted/untargeted effects.

On top of that, it opens the door for a little more depth within the skillset other than just CRYSTALSPIN X every few minutes.

I don't know. I think in order to solve a problem you have to define the problem. Here are my problems with Harmonics:

1) It has too much of a hippie vibe, it seems inconsistent with the theme of a scientific researcher.

2) It appears to lack some umph in the 1 versus 1 department, since all of its abilities are targeted towards groups of enemies. (Note: I am a noob to this game, this is just my suspicion)

With those problems in mind, I think being able to TUNE/ADJUST/DIAL your generator/crystalplex/whatever for not only specific effects but for who those effects affect would solve both problems.

Plus, you know, your wand could become an extension of your generator... like an antenna through which you channel the various trends or what not... which is pretty awesome.

Convoluted ideas aren't judged relative to things that already or exist, or Astrology would trump pretty much everything. It's a measure of how much work it would be to tweak the current skill to do what you want. To that end, anything that's not CRYSTALSPIN is relatively complex and adding new syntaxes and changing current ones is a very complex.

All of my opinions on this are simply what would be cool to see, since I don't have a researcher. But I like the idea of the crystals floating around, just not how the mechanics actually work. Making them single target lets you tweak them a bit and makes them feel more like a guardian. Having seperate tools for seperate paths sounds neat.

The ideals sound interesting to me from a role-play level, but they also seem like to me they would actually be more limiting mechanics wise. Example, if you have to create and plop each tool into a room when you move, then you have far less fluid combat potential than other guardians who just have the entity following and performing the actions for them. I have no problem with cool sounding abilities, but I personally prefer function over flashiness. The best looking and sounding abilities can be worthless, if their functions are not that fluid in the flow of combat.

I personally would prefer that we first remove the problem of gem effects stacking by making most of them targeted in effect, and then increase their effective levels (speed, damage, etc) to the same levels as other guardians. Then after that, perhaps remove some of the redundancies in abilities and give harmonics users a bit of control over what types of afflictions they give similar to how pacts work, but in a manner that befits the Institutes use of crystals. One example would be just a slight change in the syntax of the Malefactgem ability to "crystalspin malefactgem target afflictionname". The afflictions being possible would be limited to the afflictions the ability is already capable of giving randomly, but now the harmonics user can control which is given.

Anyhow I personally believe Harmonics only needs a few changes, but outside of what I have mentioned above and in other places the skill-set seems fine to me.