Brainstorming racial abilities

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Cherek
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Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Cherek » 03 Feb 2021 19:58

Hello,

As many of you already know, making races more balanced is something I would like to get done at some point in the not so distant future. One (of several) potential ideas is to simply make the stats much more even, but instead introduce special racial abilities for each race. For example, each race could have a choice of five different abilities, and a player gets to select one of them at character creation/death. Existing players would be prompted to make their selection the next time they log in, they do not have to die to get their ability. Dying is only needed if you want to change it later, just like when you change race.

I have a lot of ideas already for these abilities, but I thought I would request the aid of the community in coming up with more ideas.

So, please fill this thread with any suggestions you have for good racial abilities that fits our six base races. And don't hold back, it could be anything from simple things like +X in a skill to more fancy things like PVP abilities or spells. Please don't consider realism or how possible your idea is to make, just blurt out anything can think of!

NOTE: This is a thread for brainstorming possible racial abilities ONLY. Any post that tries to start a discussion about racial balance or posts that critisize other people's ideas will be immediately removed. If you want a more general discussion about racial balance, please start your own thread.

Drazson
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Drazson » 03 Feb 2021 20:50

A first take, might get to edit later! :)

Elf: Might hear people sneaking about.
Human: Gain a bit of sturdiness when they lead a team (probably a small con buff)
Dwarf: They ignore a small part of their encumbrance.
Hobbit: They can eat a bit above their fill.
Goblin: Pack tactics, more accuracy when in a goblin (only?) group. (Not additive, they either have it or not)
Gnome: Haggle - better prices (on top of trading). Another would be that you cannot steal their coinage or gems.

Some racial guilds do this already so it's a bit awkward but each race could have some skills (generic, combat or both) which they can train a bit more at AGs.

Elf: Language, Awareness, Missiles, Sword
Human: Climb, Swim, Sword, Polearm
Dwarf: Appraise value, Trading, Axe, Club
Hobbit: Open lock, sneak, hide, Dagger(?)
Goblin: Block, Riding, Sword, Missiles
Gnome: Trading, Appraise Object, Transmutation

That would help more difficult and weird builds like SoHM/Blademasters for example! :)

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Arc
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Arc » 03 Feb 2021 21:14

Hobbits or Dwarves: Nomadic(increased "movement" skills like climbing and swimming, and reduced stamina loss by traveling"
Gnomes: Greedy(Increased thief spot chance, decreased bank prices, possibly higher gold find on corpses)
Gnomes: ThePortableMonetaryTranmogrificatorMkIII!(Allows one to sell items from anywhere at awful prices, and minimize coins at pretty bad conversion rates)
Hobbits: Second Breakfast(Increased food max means more stamina regen from food, but food decreases faster)
Dwarves: Dipsomaniac(Increased booze max, get stat/regen penalties when not drunk enough, slight poison resist)
Dwarves: I don't have a good name for this one(Decreased smith price, weapons and armour degrade slower.)
I'll probably post more later, these are just the ones I've come up with for now.
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." - Terry Pratchett

Baz
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Baz » 03 Feb 2021 21:15

Since I love Hobbits, I’ll mostly add ideas for my beloved race.

For simple skill boosts, can be packaged together pretty well:

Acrobat + 20 / Defence + 10
Sneak + 10 / Hide + 10

Or maybe even go higher, and do a single stat boost like Acrobat + 40 with the new acrobat changes. Maybe even though in a +Dex stat if you’d like.

Some interesting ideas mentioned in the discord are having traits like: Increase Pickpocket chances, increase dodge rates. Possibly increased chances to crit? Increased Stamina + Appetites.

As for abilities, I’m not really too sure. Maybe an ability to increase speed? Like how we have an imbue for +speed, we can add that as well to be a race ability for a short duration.

You can also throw it together instead of a “Racial Ability” instead make it a "Racial package". And do the same for the others.

Like Hobbit (Light Foot): Acrobat +40/ Sneak + 20 /Hide + 20 ( higher/lower )
Hobbit (Speed): Has that ability/skill to increase the speed of the character, much like the speed imbue. + a few stats (?)
Hobbit (Hearty): +20 Defence / Double Stamina & Double Appetite.
Hobbit (Nomad): + Movement Skills / +20 Herbalism / Alchemy (?) Has the ability to add poison or herb effects to weapons and armour for a limited time? OR possibly use those poison herbs offensively somehow, I.E. Throwing them in vials or wrapping them around rocks/pebbles and throwing them at people. OR simply just a skill to smack them with it.

Just a few ideas…

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Arc
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Arc » 04 Feb 2021 06:26

Some active ability ideas this time.
Hobbit: Can'tComeUpWithAName(You take advantage of your short stature to make it hard for enemies to hit you, increasing dodge chance)
Goblin: Ankle Slash(Make someone your own size so you can pick on them by slashing their ankles, decreasing their defence and maybe making movement deal damage temporarily)
Gnome: Look!Shiny!(Throw gold to briefly distract an enemy, lowering either their attack or defence briefly, maybe both)
Dwarf: Bear Hug(Wraps an enemy in a deadly embrace that makes it a lot harder for them to attack you and deals constant damage to them, at the cost of you not being able to attack, as well as a high cooldown)
Elf: Mystic Charm(Has a chance to convince an enemy to stop fighting you, will last until you anger that enemy again by attacking it, attacking its friend, leaving and coming back(if it attacks on sight), or triggering some other effect that would ordinarily make it hostile)
Human: Versatile(Like a weaker mercenary adapt, allows you to train a certain skill up to x levels higher, x being a number that I'm not going to decide because idk balance. The skill can be switched at any time, but levels trained above your new max will decay. Not exactly a combat ability, maybe I'll come up with an actual combat ability later)
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." - Terry Pratchett

Makfly
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Makfly » 04 Feb 2021 09:33

A few classic suggestions for Gnomes would be
Darkvision
Some level of magical resistance

But Gnomes in Genesis has always been associated with the GoG, so having some sort of bonus when it comes to wealth would be fitting.
It could be +Trading skill, lower expenses at all GoG banks, or as has also been suggested more and higher value coins found on corpses. The first and third ideas perhaps has the added bonus, of being less prone to exploitation of a 'second' being a mule for a main character.
Mortimor Makfly - Gnomish Xeno-Anthropologist

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Zhar
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Zhar » 04 Feb 2021 09:46

Dwarf: increased alcohol capacity
Elf: spell affinity (could perhaps get a small bonus to reduce the difficulty of casting spells or increase their effectiveness)
Gnome: magic resistance
Goblin: infravision
Hobbit: increased food capacity
Human: they're versatile so should perhaps have adapt-like ability that would let them spread 20 or so skill points as they see fit
Time is precious. Waste it wisely.

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Redblade
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Redblade » 04 Feb 2021 15:34

Hello everyone! Sorry in advance for the long post, ideas sort of just exploded. Bear in mind I never played some of these races, I just tried to cover all (I really, really hope I didn’t forget any, if I did, sorry).

Human
Growth proficiency: Since humans don’t get a bonus to anything (which imho is a huge drawback itself) perhaps they could grow faster?
Human cunning: Gives a chance to score/avoid hits smarly as the human learns it’s opponent’s tactics.
Weapon neutral: Increases basic weapon skill learned in AG. Maybe 30->40 or 45, whatever is worth it. Perhaps not for missiles.
Best friend: Allows to mark one willing, remembered player character. Subsequently the human will always have their friend’s back and share their joy. Allow human to take a hit for their buddy or feel envigorated when the buddy is doing well. Make this really worth it but make the timer for a change really, really long. Make a timer so that the ability takes effect certain time from marking. Give a bonus if the Best friend ability is mutually used by two humans.
Nemesis: Similiar to Best friend. Mark one (likely unwilling), not necessarily remembered player character – marking should be done when in the same room. Driven by furious hate, you deal significantly more damage to your Nemesis. Other properties I imagine similiar to Best friend ability. Maybe create something nice if my Best friend declares me their Nemesis? As long as the two humans can roleplay this... it can be great fun.

Elf
Always vigilant: It’s hard to catch this elf by surprise. Whenever wielding a weapon, upon being attacked, the elf lashes at their foe with potential to deal damage. This ability can also miss. Sidenote: Such ability already exists in the game, altough only for PvP.
Stay there!: When wielding a loaded bow, the elf can do a special type of block – Stay there! block. It only targets one being. The elf exclaims a warning and if the creature moves from the elf to another room, the elf takes an opportunity shot with added damage.
Master of own mind: Some (significant) protection against illusion type spells.

Half-elf
Dual heritage: Gets some abilities of both previous. Left for the wizards to pick.

Orc
Frightening: Increases panic on a foe they attack.
Orc cunning: The orc willingly opens defenses and lures their foe to strike them, but deals a cruel (melee) hit upon their foe. This needs caution, it could be deadly for the orc. Maybe on-off switch? Automatic off when under a self-set level of health?

Drow
Nightvision: Give these guys serious passive nightvision. The spell was pretty draining and rather annoying for me.
Dark companion: A spider (or scorpion, or...) actually follows you around – leaves when you leave, goes wherever you go (like a teammate). The companion doesn’t assist nor attack on it’s own, but will defend itself and inflict poison to attacker. The companion grows as the drow grows. The companion can act as a one-way messenger. The drow protects their companion fiercely. If the companion dies, the drow has to do some sort of redemption task to get a new one. If the drow dies, the companion remains and attacks whoever killed the drow. There’s a lot of potential to this, hope I sparked some ideas. (Make drow more fun!)

Dwarf
Mithril master: Gets a bonus to protection/damage/hit chance when using armour/weapon made of mitrhil. Would take a lot of coding perhaps, but... sounds really nice!
Hard as stone: Some (significant) natural earth-magic protection, slightly increased con.

Goblin&Hobgoblin
Frightening: Increases panic on a foe they attack.

Hobbit
Small size: Due to Small size, they are harder to hit, both melee and by a spell. Likely this is just +X acrobat.
Very nimble: Increases hit chance significantly. Or perhaps attack speed?

Kender&Halfling
Small size: Due to Small size, they are harder to hit, both melee and by a spell. Likely this is just +X acrobat.
(sorry, I can’t come up with anything else, never played these)

Gnome
Small size: Due to Small size, they are harder to hit, both melee and by a spell. Likely this is just +X acrobat.
Money maker: Suggested multiple times: +X trading skill, increase coins found on corpses, lower bank rates.

Minotaur
Helmet of horns: Make hitting the head of a minotaur damage attacker’s weapon. Or hurt, if unarmed.
Horned defense: Allows the minotaur to parry a melee hit with their horns. Passive or perhaps even active ability.

Undead
(this improvement suggestion section was left blank intentionally)

If you read it all, thank you for your time.
Auta i lómë, Aurë entuluva!
The Night is passing, Day shall come again!

Amberlee
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Amberlee » 04 Feb 2021 15:53

Dwarf: A minor bonus to poison resistance and perhaps a reduction in travelling fatigue.

Halfling: Penalty to detecting a sneaking halfling and minor bonus to critically hit enemies as well as a reduction in chance of being critically hit.

Human: Small bonus to XP combat XP gain up to a certain level, as well as that of the team they lead. Giving smaller people than themselves the ability to assist them regardless of size of enemy.

Goblins: a small bonus to hit when they outnumber enemies and a small bonus to damage when they are outnumbered.

Gnomes: The ability to identify properties of items as well as crafting some minor trinkets that can help them.

Elves: Reduced difficulty in casting spells and a minor bonus to defence.
The views posted by me on this forum is not the views of the character Amberlee in-game.
If you ask for my opinion here, you will get MY opinion, not that of my character.

Quantum
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Re: Brainstorming racial abilities

Post by Quantum » 04 Feb 2021 20:54

Goblin: Slap their enemies and prevent all spell-casting for 3 seconds. 10 seconds cooldown. Yes, you just got goblinslapped! Deal with it :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Hobbit: If in a room with someone else, every 5 minutes one food item is moved from that person to you, because you're hungry.

Dwarf: Every day 10 silver coins are added to your bank account as your mining investments pay dividends.

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