Splitting from the New Project thread... what ideas do you have for monk and bard tetriaries?

I've only heard very brief bits about clairsentience mentioned here, here, here, here, and well... you get the idea.

Sounds like it moved from an idea with some weight behind it and then... just fizzled out. Would love to know more about the monk spec clairsentience in regards to possible implementation a monk tetriary.

I had a vague idea for a puppetry skill for bards. Where a bard could animate up to three puppets around him. As the skillset progressed different eyes and mouthes could be painted on the puppet for different effects. And then magical masks that could be worn by the bard for various defences and what not.

Monks don't need another tertiary until you fix their primary.

Add harmonicas as instruments plz.

Linking twice to the same ancient topic in one day seems like bad luck, but since you've made it obligatory... Aesthetics, a fine arts tertiary for bards.

WOO YEA CLAIRSENTIENCE. We had a ton of awesome ideas floating about on the monk dev forums. Nejii, away!

Salvation... as I've come to understand through the forums, it appears that Clairsentience was shelved two years ago so that monks could be balanced. Is this the case from what you can remember? Nejii?

Clairsentience was forgotten about so monks could be re-done for the 3rd time or so. We were supposed to go back to it, but you know how things happen. You get Beastmastery, Forging, Racial revamps, etc.

3rd time? I only remember PPK monks and then momentum monks. Now I'm curious about 1st gen monks. Would be nice to see another psionic monk spec as an option to psychometabolism and to balance out the mage-heavy skillset.

Also anxiously waiting to see if REPORT 447 is accepted or rejected. Looks like SOLUTION #1 would run counter to having a second psionic monk spec. Fingers crossed for solution #2...

Either way, I hope to see clairsentience revived in my lifetime!

Report 447 seems way too radical to be accepted to me, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Clairsentience is still theoretically possible.

You could probably come up with ideas for a third monk skill to even them out with magi like Lendren's done with aesthetics. At one point I considered trying to write up a base with bard and monk specs, but then I forgot about it I guess.

I always wanted to see a Monk 'secondary' that you could take in place of Stealth/Harmony and would be universal to all monks (much like how Tracking is to Warriors).

You had PPK Monks -> Experimental Vibration/Rupture Monks -> Momentum Monks.

Clairsentience was tossed around as an idea at the first stage, and there were some pretty good ideas. But don't expect it to be any more offensive than Psychometabolism by any means.

Aaahhh, then I was there for all three. Must have come in on the tail end of PPK because I remember ruptures quite well. Just a guess, but I think momentum monks are here to stay... for a while at least.

Actually I don't consider Psychometabolism an offensive skillset. All of the abilities are various defenses (for the most part). Acrobatics has more offensive abilities in its bag of tricks.

Nah, I would expect Clairsentience to provide some basic defenses but mainly utility I suppose. Judging by the name, I imagine the skill set provides abilities that extends the range of the five senses, but mostly hearing and sight (since they are the most pertinent to muds).

That or a base that turned into commune/city monk specs.

Lately I've been thinking about that common secondary monk skillset that's shared between stealth ahd harmony monks. In all consideration, this new skill set would be hinged upon two conditionals.

FIRST, the current secondary skill sets of stealth and harmony are directly tied into the UV conflict. Illithoid-based monks teach stealth. Kepheran based monks teach harmony. Any new skill set would need to originate and operate outside of a UV theme. Thinking about what already exists in the game, the Tosha monks offers such a vantage. More about this later.

SECONDLY, further considerations will need to be made if and when Halli/Gaudi monks are ever released. Will they continue along the stealth/harmony split? Gaudi hints towards stealth monks with an illithoid in their collegium; Halli collegium has a kepheran if I remember correctly. I would assume Gaudi stealth monks and Hali harmony monks. Then again, they could also receive a completely unique secondary shared between the two.

Therefore, my ideas for a new monk secondary could either act as a common skill set shared between all monks as an alternative to stealth/harmony OR Gaudi/Halli secondary (assuming they won't get stealth/harmony). The skill set will originate from the Tosha Monsestary, and will incorporate their core themes: FORM, HEART, SPIRIT, CLARITY.

The "flavour" of the skill set will need to vastly differ from stealth/harmony. Whereas stealth is steeped in themes of subterfuge, and harmony balance of mind through the elements. Right there, the Toshan-flavoured skill set already runs the danger of being to similar to harmony. I'll need to think more carefully about how it will be different.

I was thinking about more of a "peaceful warrior" theme. Something like the best warrior is one who never has to draw their weapon. In my imagineering, I want to play down the offensive (i.e. more afflictions, supporting the combat monk) and play up the options to act in more of a supporting role. Anyway, this is my rough sketch. More to follow later.

There's no reason it has to be Tosha-related. You're probably best off shooting for one of them out of the Basin groups like psionics or ecology's teachers.

EDIT: I also don't think you should get your hopes up considering we don't even have clairsentience yet and we were supposed to get that years ago. The admin are probably tired of dealing with monks atm. Which is not to say that I don't think it'd be worth considering if that wasn't the case!

I'm not doing this with any serious intent of it being implemented. That "fanboy" obsession of building upon an existing franchise is satisfaction within itself. Why else would the likes of Lendren or Xiel do what they do? We have entire "Ideas" thread devoted to this. I just have to do things in my Janalon-sized way. With that being said, I've imagined a secondary skillset that I'd seriously consider playing if it were ever implemented. No hopes, but a helluva fun time to imagine.

Fair enough. If I were to make that call I'd want to expand on the distinction between earth magic and metal magic. EDIT: That would only work for harmony monks though.