Cryosite
08-30-2010, 12:06 PM
Name unimportant, but I think it would fit the skill alright, open to suggestions though.
Pretty much I'm incredibly unhappy with just how many blessings are lost whenever I die. I use ego to offset that whenever possible, but typically each death strips anywhere from 0 (incredibly freaking rare, have had it happen less than a dozen times in my entire time playing) to nearly every single one of the possible 11 equips worn (I've lost 10 blessings from a single death before, I assume 11 is possible).
Going with the assumption that each blessings an X% chance of going away when you die, my skill idea would work to reduce that chance as you ranked it. It would still be possible to lose blessings even at rk1, but as long as the reduction was pretty significant by then, I think it would make a ton of people very happy.
3-6 blessings lost per death seems to be rather average (when carrying only 8-9 equips), which leads me to believe that a 50% loss rate would be a good educated guess. If each rank of Piety reduced that by just 1%, for a total of -15% at rk1, losing blessings 35% of the time for each equip would still happen on a regular basis and would not get rid of the need for HW. But it would reduce the number of blessings lost in that example (8-9 equips) down to 1-5 each death, I think.
If that seems like too little of an impact, perhaps some ranks could be given a larger boost (rk9+2, 5+2, and 1+4). A 20% decrease in drop rate would produce a 1-4 average blessings lost per death, I believe.
If that still seems too weak, unimportant, perhaps 2% per levels, with larger boosts sprinkled in netting 25% reduction, bringing the average loss/death to 0-3.
And so on.
Additionally, since it is nice to get stats from skills, especially life skills, I think Will and perhaps even Luck would be most appropriate from this skill. As an additional source of crit, this skill would be even more attractive, so the amount of will/luck gained would likely have to be rather small (since total possible crit% able to be reached is something that needs to be somewhat kept under control). I think that in addition to maintaining blessings on your equipment through power of faith is fitting, but also the slaying of your enemies through critical blows might also seem like divine help to some. Lastly, faith is an act of will.
Now, as to how the skill would be ranked... I could easily see a lot of quests being handed out by the various churches. Perhaps getting access to these quests could be tied into your church jobs count, requiring you to have advanced jobs for rk1 for sure, possibly sooner than that. Getting killed and losing blessings, though particularly sadistic a training requirement, would also seem fitting. Perhaps less sadistic would be a requirement to apply HW to stuff a lot.
If the skill needs any more effects to be attractive to rank, some possible routes to achieving this could be in modifying various affects upon death (slight reduction in xp lost, amount of health/wounds you have on revival, etc.). Another avenue to explore might be to modify the basic "auto deadly" mechanic, perhaps lowering the % of hp needed to trigger this effect. Or even more wild an idea, when going deadly perhaps the skill could heal you some % of your health. A particularly dangerous and easily overpowering possibility would be to increase the 30% limit on critical, so that you could land crits more than 30% of the time.
Feedback and discussion greatly appreciated.
Pretty much I'm incredibly unhappy with just how many blessings are lost whenever I die. I use ego to offset that whenever possible, but typically each death strips anywhere from 0 (incredibly freaking rare, have had it happen less than a dozen times in my entire time playing) to nearly every single one of the possible 11 equips worn (I've lost 10 blessings from a single death before, I assume 11 is possible).
Going with the assumption that each blessings an X% chance of going away when you die, my skill idea would work to reduce that chance as you ranked it. It would still be possible to lose blessings even at rk1, but as long as the reduction was pretty significant by then, I think it would make a ton of people very happy.
3-6 blessings lost per death seems to be rather average (when carrying only 8-9 equips), which leads me to believe that a 50% loss rate would be a good educated guess. If each rank of Piety reduced that by just 1%, for a total of -15% at rk1, losing blessings 35% of the time for each equip would still happen on a regular basis and would not get rid of the need for HW. But it would reduce the number of blessings lost in that example (8-9 equips) down to 1-5 each death, I think.
If that seems like too little of an impact, perhaps some ranks could be given a larger boost (rk9+2, 5+2, and 1+4). A 20% decrease in drop rate would produce a 1-4 average blessings lost per death, I believe.
If that still seems too weak, unimportant, perhaps 2% per levels, with larger boosts sprinkled in netting 25% reduction, bringing the average loss/death to 0-3.
And so on.
Additionally, since it is nice to get stats from skills, especially life skills, I think Will and perhaps even Luck would be most appropriate from this skill. As an additional source of crit, this skill would be even more attractive, so the amount of will/luck gained would likely have to be rather small (since total possible crit% able to be reached is something that needs to be somewhat kept under control). I think that in addition to maintaining blessings on your equipment through power of faith is fitting, but also the slaying of your enemies through critical blows might also seem like divine help to some. Lastly, faith is an act of will.
Now, as to how the skill would be ranked... I could easily see a lot of quests being handed out by the various churches. Perhaps getting access to these quests could be tied into your church jobs count, requiring you to have advanced jobs for rk1 for sure, possibly sooner than that. Getting killed and losing blessings, though particularly sadistic a training requirement, would also seem fitting. Perhaps less sadistic would be a requirement to apply HW to stuff a lot.
If the skill needs any more effects to be attractive to rank, some possible routes to achieving this could be in modifying various affects upon death (slight reduction in xp lost, amount of health/wounds you have on revival, etc.). Another avenue to explore might be to modify the basic "auto deadly" mechanic, perhaps lowering the % of hp needed to trigger this effect. Or even more wild an idea, when going deadly perhaps the skill could heal you some % of your health. A particularly dangerous and easily overpowering possibility would be to increase the 30% limit on critical, so that you could land crits more than 30% of the time.
Feedback and discussion greatly appreciated.