My goodness you guys are spoiled! Some other games which we shall not mention have guilds which are complete clones of each. Other games have dropped guilds completely and went with a couple of 'classes' which anyone anywhere can pick up (some exceptions apply).
The skill design of Lusternia, on the other hand, from the very beginning wanted to make guilds not only work but to make each unique. I think we have done that but not without cost or unforeseen negative side effects. Because there are so many skills and so many specializations (i.e., so many unique guilds), we have ended up spawning many more afflictions and systems than we had planned. Combat likewise has gotten much more complex and the barrier to entry thus lifted. Thus, while I applaud the idea of making wiccan/druid more unique through specializations and/or diverging skills, I am resistant to such an overhaul that would further increase the complexity of Lusternia.
Anyway, while I wouldn't be adverse to ideas of adding 1-2 new unique skills in druidry/wicca through the envoy process, I am not particularly keen on a complete overhaul. BTW, I like your confidence that it would take a month to completely rework drudiry/wicca; however, experience has shown that a complete overhaul (i.e., complete reworking), from design to finish, can take up to 6 months or more.
On the other hand, what I have been considering (though I don't want to go into detail), would be more tertiary choices that could be shared among certain guilds (at least more than one). If you have ideas along those lines, feel free to share!
Split from the "
Replying to Wiccan/Druid... uniqueness" thread. Didn't want to derail their productive conversation. After asking twice (with no response from either player or admin), thought it might be OK to split into a separate thread. I have notes from the initial brainstorming session for Clairvoyance, a monk tert specialization split off psionics. Imagine:
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Psionics: (Intellect)
Psychometabolism
Clairvoyance
Telekinesis
Telepathy
Where TK/TP are the mage branches of psionics, and psymet/clair are the monk side. Here are some of the discussed skills:
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* Clairvoyance
Allows you to sense when personal allies enter within 5 rooms of you.
* Clairaudience
Allows you to hear the thoughts of the target (including aether communications). Active ability.
* CombatMind
* TrueSight
Allows you to see the entrance and exits of all people, regardless of defenses (shroud, ghost, dreamform, etc)
* DangerSense
Allows you to sense when personal enemies enter within 5 rooms of you.
* Awareness
Allows you to sense the passage of people through your location from the past few minutes.
* Precognition
A defense which allows you to "see the attacks coming." Increase chance to dodge.
* Sensitivity
Allows you to bond with another who has psionics (Monks and Mages). Damage done to the person bonded to you is shared by you (spread between the two.)
* AllAroundVision
Allows you to sense what another psionic user is using for their channels, such as what is locked where.
* FeelSound
* Predestination
Trans skill, 10P. Assuming you set the location earlier, you can will yourself to that location. Takes a couple of seconds of no movement. Location set must be within the territories of your organization (or the Portal of Fate). Plane boundries are disregarded.
* ProbabilityManipulation
Builds on Precognition. Enchances your chance to dodge.
* DirectionSense
Allows you to ignore duststorms, illusionary exits, snowstorms, etc. You always know the exits to your location.
* Prediction
* CombatTrance
* ObjectReading
Allows you to sense the last few people to touch an object.
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CombatMind: Your psionic development has reached the point were psionic attacks against you may fail, due to your psionically conditioned mind. Psionic attacks targeted against you specifically have some chance of failing. If the attack fails, the attacker regains that channel balance in half the time it normally takes.
CombatTrance: Your psionic mind can now disrupt the concentration of other psionic users. Basically a disruption scroll. If you want to make it more powerful, have it passively (with a small chance of success) unlock channels of enemied psionic users in the same location. Again, channel regain time from this is halved.
---Preflexes Future-seeing reflexes that let you reduce damage by dodging
Def; Multi-source damage reduction so we can actually survive mobs
FocusBearing Keep bearings and correct direction orientation under any circumstances
Def; See exits during sandstorms etc; also never lose direction to dizziness
Musclereading Read opponents' physical motions so you can more effectively avoid attacks
Def; Increased stance/parry
Doublebluff Predict an opponents' movements so that you can strike more accurately
Def; Slightly increased accuracy
*Clairsentience Track your opponents from afar
Unlocked is scry, locked alerts you to directions the target moves
*Mindfield Why is this in psychometabolism anyway?
Drains power/knocks off eq/something useful when scried
Predestination The Fates foretold that you would be here at this time!
Transports you to a preset location
*OcularHalo Create a psionic visor in front of your eyes
Either an active dispell me effect, or seeing through illusions/passive glamours and changeself
*SenseFlood Overload the sensory systems of your opponents
Passively strips blind and deaf, causing damage if they're removed
*Review Increase your awareness of your foes' status
Gives alerts when opp's health, mana and ego fall below 75%, 50% and 25%. This was suggested to me as 4 seperate skills (one master for ego, one myth for all, the other two for health and mana inbetween) to throw a bone to people without discern
*Tetravision Visualise all that cannot be seen
Lets you ignore shroud totally and see the exit/entrance of ghosts/weavers. EDIT: Wouldn't work on some stealth skills like engulf and so on.
*ShutSenses Shut down your normal sensory system and augment it with psionics
Periodically gives blind, deaf, sixthsense + truehearing
VibrationRead Analyse the area's air flow to pick up inhabitants and their locations
Scent, but unblocked by skunk pee
EDIT: It's been suggested that a counter to this of some kind go into clairsentience, but it's already not better than farscout so it doesn't seem that relevant to me.
*ShareSenses Share your pain with a foe
Deals a portion of the damage you receive to the opponent this is locked on
*Georeading Detects people moving into and out of your area
Locked, power def
ProjectSenses Centre your awareness around a target
Lock this onto a target in a room, and LOOK and psymet powers like tetravision and vibrationreading work as if from their location instead of yours
Foreboding Predict and avoid your own death
One-time effect for power - instead of dying, what would kill you shoves you a few rooms away as you predict the threat to your life and scarper
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*Psygnosis - Experience and understand afflictions as your body suffers them
Locked. Otherwise hidden afflictions (demon, slaugh, crone, telepathy) instead (have a 50% chance to?) reveal to you the actual affliction.
*Hypercognition - Accurately assess the state of an opponent from second to second
Locked on a target. Whenever an opponent gets or cures an affliction you get a short line underneath the cure message to show they did it.
X-ray/heat/whatever vision! - Allow your vision to pass through hindrances unimpeded
Def. Squinting and looking and stuff is uninterrupted by icewalls, doors, blinding effects, and so on. And maybe dementia, probably not though.
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PrecisionSight - See your target like never before!
Your can see your targets more clearly, regardless of how strange their anatomy may or may not be. This will allow you to better aim your strikes at critical points, increasing your critical hit rate. Would boost critical rate by a bit, the same as the level 1 crit arti? Could be locked depending on how significant the boost would be.
Also, one thing I would like done to distinguish further between the various monk specs is to have 1-2 abilities that are dependant on if the monk has Stealth or Harmony... a few hivemind abilities for kephera-based-monks vs. a few divination/sneak (maybe even ego-based instead of cha-based?) abilities for illithoid-based-monks.
EDIT: If the monk has Stealth, they could learn:
*TraceProjection: Traces of your aura linger in various locations, confusing your opponents.
Grants immunity to ranged-attacks (darts, demi zaps, rage/terror covens, psichoke). Alternatively, you would 'mark' a room by locking this def in that room and, as long as the channel remained locked, scry/thirdeye/scent would show as in the marked room (regardless of where you may be, limited to same continent.)
LockOn: Never miss again!
Def, darts can be shot as line-of-sight weapons (would require monk to know up to Aim in Stealth) and take less balance (you take less time to aim the weapon because of your psionic vision).
Whereas Harmony monks could learn (in addition to a basic Hivemind ability):
PsionicDispersion: For the greater good of the hive.
Requires full ego, drains all ego (forced burnout?) to restore balance to all members of the hive (or speedup up balance recovery by 0.5s for the next x seconds?). Would not require balance, but take super/id/sub.
Singularity: Re-align the flow of your being.
Def, all mantra chants count as any element of your choosing (or type?). So you could chant fire/wood/fire mantras but get the bonus of chanting three metal mantras instead/in addition to. I have never used Harmony, and this is simply from looking at the ABs, so... grain of salt.
Thoughts on this? I would love to see a new monk psionic tert to bring balance to the mage/monk psionic skillset... and have other options available to monks on both sides of the stealth/harmony divide.
over Telepaths, who really don't have much going for them in the first place. A large part of a Telepaths offense is based on capitalizing on those hidden afflictions. We need our targets to choose between diagnosing or continuing their offense else they'll end up overwhelmed by afflictions if they're not paying attention. I'm being overly idealistic in my argument. By giving anyone the ability to passively know what the afflictions are you're sending Telepaths further into the crapper in comparison to TK. 
