Shattered Kingdoms

How would you like to see the Sorcs have the "schools'

That's a fairly huge question in the scope of the answer, but in basic terms there would need to be a few new spells added that were available only to a particular school respectively. Some of the standard spell list for sorcs would be stripped and sectioned, making it available in parts to various sorc schools.

As an example, an Enchanter school of sorc would be available, which would lose some combat utility like Petrification and Acid Blast, but would get the Enchant Weapon and Armor spells, as well as a master-level spell to replace Petrification that would be something along the lines of Improved Enchant that would allow for a specified *type* of enchantment to be added to armor instead of the random garbage that is currently available via the normal Enchant Armor spell.

Another example might be Invoker school of sorc, which would have spells like Acid Blast and Petrification, but would lose the more "illusion" based spells like color spray and mirror image. Maybe give them access to stone skin as well, or something similar like an Energy Shield that would work similar to shield except would reduce melee damage as well.

Those are just rough ideas to give as example of how each school would differ. There wouldn't be any need to specialize school, meaning you could still just play a sorc sorc and get a decent balance of utility and combat ability as exists now, but specializing in a school would give you access to spells and/or skills that no other common sorc or sorc school would have access to.

EDIT: To be completely honest, I'd actually just like to see necromancer/sorc/warlock all merged into the Mage class, and then depending on which branch of spell training you seek out, your school and focus is determined in that way. This could provide a great deal of RP, as various members of various caster schools vie for the young blood to enrich and strengthen their specific paradigm of magic.

As I understand, Dulrik's answer to character customization is by forcing players to spread stat points out, in my opinion sometimes unreasonably.

That being said, I don't think creating an ala carte style of player classes is a good idea. It screams balance issues.

I don't disagree that warlocks need a second looking at. The one I recently played had a lot of issues that I didn't care for, so he's with the fishies.

That's why instead of remaking the classes to be ultra flexible. Why not add something like a feat system? That would help give flexibility to the chars. The feats would give skills to master as normal, but to be able to get these feats you would have to meet the prereq's (lvl, race, etc.).

For instance a barbarian(Expert, possibly merc feat).

Throw Anything

This feat allows the char to throw any weapon in their inventory. The damage from this is attack is much greater than would be from a normal attack.

or . . .

Firestarter (warlock/Master)

A warlock with this feat is powerful with fire indeed. This feat has two effects. First, negates some magical protection from your fire based attacks. Second, decreases casting time slightly.

There is a drawback though, all of your cold spells take longer to cast and do less damage.

Those are just a couple of ideas. Whether they are balanced or not, I don't know. Allowing a large pool of feats where you have to choose wisely in what you take because you wouldn't get many (like 1 per status lvl) would give chars some flexibility in concept and execution. While at the same time reining in on power.

Feats COULD be interesting - but I feel like that it would still open up a can of balancing worms. Take the faith spells for example. You have Dabi with that ridiculous <REMOVED> spell and then you get something silly like <insert every other faith spell>.

Mind you, I may only be looking at this from a PvP standpoint - there are faith spells with utility, but I should be able to play any character any way I want to. If I want to make a Meissa (don't know the faith spell, probably sucks) priest and PvP with it, I should be able to go up against a Dabi priest and do that.

It's like - if I want to play a priest and be viable in PvP I need to take Dabi. Its an easy choice. It shouldn't be like that.

I don't think that any one player should have a distinct advantage over another. I think that rather than focusing on adding more things to the game that it should be balanced out (Fist anyone?). I think that we should be focusing on making the game fun and balanced - and worry about over powered feats later

Now, in support of the idea? I think that players who don't choose to join a cabal should have some opportunity to select a feat or feats - you shouldn't have to join a cabal or tribunal to get a distinct PvP advantage. You could maybe select between a feat or joining a cabal. If you join a cabal the cabal skills become your feats, and if you get kicked out the feats replace the cabal skills. Just a thought.

Wow.... that's takes the cake for dumb strategies to date. Sure that'll make you immune to fire, but not the rest of his spells or a different elemental. Not to mention you just sac'd all your gear, so in a Sorcerer/Necro/Priest's case buh bah resistances and any other modifiers. And well that just would gimp a rogue completely.

Next bright idea?

Way to miss the point fairly completely. The whole idea was that a warlock dedicated to a particular element would have the majority of their spellset geared towards that element, with their major damage spell (in this case magma spray) related to that element. And guess what? It absolutely will shut down anything but bash and dirt kick from a fire elemental (which is what the majority of warlocks fly around with as soon as they can summon one, and once combat has begun it's already too late to change type). Not to mention the dragon reach can just ignore the elemental, who is essentially useless at that point anyway, and just focus on the much weaker warlock sitting behind said elemental.

Also, you didn't sac *all* your gear. A dragon actually has almost as many slots as a griffon, you just need giant/huge gear to go in them. Resistances? You mean like those granted by shield, spell ward, armor, et al? Or maybe you mean like sanc, or protection? If you're relying on modifiers for your class attributes anyways you're in trouble no matter what, and the supernatural hide can often make up for not having modded con/dex as you might expect to see on a caster. Yes, your saves take hits, but...and? As a caster you have enough other options to compensate in the short term for that, especially since you can be doing both melee and magical damage to the warlock.

The point is if you're using this strategy you *already know* you're going to be facing, or already are facing in the case of using a scroll, a fire-oriented 'lock, and unless they have some reason to use the far less capable elemental types they're going to be in a lot of trouble. Not to mention presumably they've already selected the focus on fire element damage, and are thus going to be less prepared to or capable of using anything other than fire-related damage.

Can rogues use this strategy as effectively? No, not likely, but who cares? I wasn't suggesting an "I win" button vs. fire-based warlocks, I was pointing out that there is at least SOME reason for people to choose something OTHER than fire-based, since if you read my comment in context it's clear I'm responding to the person who claimed that no one would ever take any other kind of elemental focus because there's no race with fire resistance, and indeed a race with a fire weakness.

I never said that they should lose all of the other elements. It would be that their focus is fire. Having a warlock mono element is just bad.

NO ONE has said they should lose all the other elements.

You go on right ahead believing that strategy of yours actually works. I read a few lines of your babble and well, how hard does a sorc/necro actually hit without a weapon?

You make me laugh, so please try harder.

<3 Chem