LOM2 as an RPG

[Boaster]

Just throwing up another thread for developmental ideas for an RPG style of LOM2.


Basic concept:
You control a single character, and can travel in a party of 4 (3 AI controlled players or human controlled players in multiplayer). The world is vast and full of lost temples and magical creatures who have long forgotten their Faith and Gods. Your character serves a particular faith. The goal of each character, faith and party is to liberate each temple from Marauders or opposing faiths. Temples serve as gateways to power the Divine beings which you serve. The more temples your faith controls, the more powerful your Divine figure becomes and thus, the more power your faith and character can become (level-wise).

When one faith controls all of the temples in the land of Urak, the world ends. What does it mean when the world ends? That will be for the players to find out.


Character generation:
Order of character generation: Faith, Race, alignment, class, weapon of choice, skills/techniques/magic, character name.

Faith determines which faith your worship (Life, Death, Order, Chaos, Water, Fire, Earth, Air). Each faith provides bonuses and penalties, most notably which magic you resist and are weak against.

Race determines what your character looks like and what his stats bonuses and penalties will be. In some cases, race will enable or disable your ability to use certain weapons or spells, techniques or skills.

Rough list of selectable races would be: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Goblin, Halfling, Gnome, Half Elf, Orc, Half Orc, Centaur, Troll, Giant, Faerie, Lizardman.

Alignment is limited based upon your race and faith. You have your Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful half of your alignment and your Good, Neutral and Evil half of your alignment. Worshipers of Order can never be Chaotic, while worshipers of Chaos can never be lawful. Worshipers of Life can never be Evil, whereas worshipers of Death can never be Good. Alignment will affect your available choices when questing and may even have an effect on how much damage you take from certain enchanted weapons which can hurt you more based on your alignment.

Class will be determined the previously selected 3 character traits. Certain classes will be off limits to certain faiths, races and alignments. Classes will also influence additional stat bonuses/penalties and available techniques and weapons available to your character. You select 1 of 3 prime classes: Warrior, Rogue and Wizard. After selecting your Prime class, you have the option of Sub-classes which further specialize your character's ability.

Warrior list: Fighter (standard), Holy Warrior (i.e. Paladin, 3/4 Fighter and 1/4 caster), Wildman (i.e. Ranger, 3/4 Fighter and 1/4 Rogue).
- Example: A Order Wildman would be called a "Ranger."
- Example: A Earth Wildman would be called a "Nomad."

Rogue list: Thief (standard), Adventurer (2/4 Thief, 1/4 Fighter, 1/4 Mage).

Wizard list: Mage (standage), Holy Mage (i.e. Cleric/Druid, 3/4 Mage, 1/4 Fighter), Apprentice (2/4 Mage, 1/4 Thief, 1/4 Fighter).

Each class and sub-class will have unique techniques, which may also be unique to their faith, race and/or alignment.

Weapon of Choice will be influenced by your class. Weapon of Choice will influence what weapon you prefer in melee combat and will not receive any combat penalties for using it.

Thieves will have mastery in all ranged weapons, but will only ever have mastery in 1 melee weapon.


Skills, Techniques and Magic will all be influenced by everything above.

---

Each trait, as listed above, is connected with the trait above it. As you go further down the tree, your character becomes more unique and specialized.

[shin]

Some good ideas, however a RPG needs a great main story, along with a bunch of side quests.

Creating a main story if the player can choose between every faiths is touchy since it will influence the story a lot.

For example if you choose death the main story should be something like anihilating every bit of life on the lands, and pretty much the opposite if you choose life.

The best, imo, would be that the main enemy is balkoth, aside with a bunch of his minions ( there could be 1 boss or more of each type like dark warriors, necros or assassins ) which would be bosses at some point in the game, and basically the player would be able to choose one of the 7 faiths except death to make his way to the end and slay balkoth.

Of course if you choose chaos or something your character would not play with flowers, but Im thinking of some sort of KOTOR system, where you can be evil but still have the main goal of killing the end boss.

couple ideas

[Boaster]

In my opinion, Balkoth should be gone from LOM2. He should be considered "dead" and only his scythe and other artifacts remain.

LOM2 would obviously be a continuation in the LOM story, but say you throw in a 200 year difference between the two. 200 years is enough time for history to become legend, and legend to become myth. And it's not unreasonably long.

Like, once Balkoth was gone, things were peaceful for many years following. But in the years of peace and prosperity the gods were forgotten and that's when darkness returned to the land and marauders and rebels began to take away monuments and temples of worship.

Of course, this is all talk of a game that may never exist, so we can't dismiss anything really.

[Boaster]

Health Regeneration based on current terrain would be another additional thing I'd like to see in LOM2.

Sure, we already have different movement speed and decreased mobility over foreign terrains, but to have different health recovery/regeneration rates over different terrains would further the usefulness of terrain.

You would have your neutral terrain recovery modifiers, friendly terrain recovery modifiers, and foreign terrain recovery modifiers. These would directly impact a unit's recovery, be it inside, outside or moved.

[darkpriest667]

ill just throw my half a cent in here..

1 - your ideas are good i respect them and acknowledge them as being thought out

2 - the world has enough sorry excuses for RPGs and heaven forbid from an earlier topic MMORPG... do not turn an exciting strategy game with rpg characteristics into a RPG... the world has enough RPGs we do not need anymore thankyou.…

The guy suggesting lords of magic should be turned into an MMORPG .. needs to put the crack pipe down and realize that blizzard sold World of Warcraft out when they made it an insanely popular (read any idiot can play this) MMORPG... Since World of warcraft came out i have never and will never buy another blizzard product ( i know that blizzard now owns sierra so if there is a LOM 2 ill be looking to rip it off - read download from torrent - and not buy like i did the original) .. Sierra has plenty of games in the RPG line ever heard of kings quest?

Thankyou but no freaking thankyou

[shin]

Feb 16, 2009 11:13:54 GMT -6 @darkpriest667 said:

ill just throw my half a cent in here..

1 - your ideas are good i respect them and acknowledge them as being thought out

2 - the world has enough sorry excuses for RPGs and heaven forbid from an earlier topic MMORPG... do not turn an exciting strategy game with rpg characteristics into a RPG... the world has enough RPGs we do not need anymore thankyou.…

The guy suggesting lords of magic should be turned into an MMORPG .. needs to put the crack pipe down and realize that blizzard sold World of Warcraft out when they made it an insanely popular (read any idiot can play this) MMORPG... Since World of warcraft came out i have never and will never buy another blizzard product ( i know that blizzard now owns sierra so if there is a LOM 2 ill be looking to rip it off - read download from torrent - and not buy like i did the original) .. Sierra has plenty of games in the RPG line ever heard of kings quest?

Thankyou but no freaking thankyou

wat

[shin]

WoW is dominating the mmorpg world, and I guess they will for still a long time.
Im still looking forward to the StarWars MMORPG, but I think it will be out in a pretty long time.

But yeah, making LOM 2 a rpg is a good idea, it has a lot of rpg features already and a well thought story to go with the game would probably make it really cool.

You seem to hate Blizzard though, whats up with that? [By the way], Blizzard are making a second MMO, my brother is currenty working on it, WoW game designer is in his team, its promising.

[Boaster]

Blizzard has fallen a long way. Now they're pumping out the same 3 products. They release a game, patch it up, announce an expansion, destroy the original so you have to buy the expansion to have a playable game.

[shin]

thing is; blizzard have a lot of money, and they are not on contracts with other companies to produce a game, its their own game, so they just put a shitload of time into every game they make, polish it for 4-5 years and then release it.
Even if they waste a bunch of money on every product they create, they still do so much profit it compensates.

[Boaster]

Feb 19, 2009 19:40:52 GMT -6 shin said:

thing is; blizzard have a lot of money, and they are not on contracts with other companies to produce a game, its their own game, so they just put a shitload of time into every game they make, polish it for 4-5 years and then release it.
Even if they waste a bunch of money on every product they create, they still do so much profit it compensates.

Blizzard doesn't "have" a lot of money, they make "a lot" of money for their shareholders. The shareholders and executives are the ones who get the big payoffs.

In the Blizzard-Activision merger, shareholders had to come to terms.

[thandu]

As long as as an MMO, LoM weren't a WoW clone, it'd be fine. Now, you might ask how is it a clone or not?

I see several potential prevention methods.


- Wide variety of races where race counts: Wow variety does not have. In LOM, it's almost impossible for race NOT to count, since we have Faeries, Giants and other mismatched sizes and elemental masters. Therefore, there could be potential race based puzzles.

- No true faction battle: Other than certain opposite faiths, you don't have any enemies. PvP servers will have many different subgroups. Because of this, class distribution is uneven.

- Being badguys: Death are vile, fire is lethal, but you'd be an arse to deny anyone access to either.


- The value of faith: Perhaps more than race could be faith aspects that play out. Different faiths would have natural abilities, such as death peoples resisting fear magic, or life peoples having bonus damage against the undead, order being less likely to be confused, chaos more resistant to mind controls, fire being nearly immune to lava, water having heightened water breathing, air resisting grounding based trapping, and earth being resistant to slowing effects.


There could be others, but these are a few examples. I'm working on a big motherload MMO idea though so don't think me idle on this all.



Case in point, it wouldn't be WoW, but it has potential to be sure to be its own beast.

[Venture Industries]

I was posting in the Vivendi Petition tread, but this thread seems more appropriate to share some ideas I have about LOM MMO/RPG.

Boaster, I hadn't even realized how much your ideas coincide with many of my concepts.

My interpretations of faith classes fit nicely into the lore. My race concepts/interpretations are based on the story at the back of the manual I've read so many years ago.

Basics:

• 3 Classes
  
• 81 Subclasses
  
• 72 or more special class titles
  
• 27 to 36 playable races
  
• 8 Faiths
  
• 9 Alliances
  
• No default enemy faith/alliance
  
• No Balkoth
  
• RPG or MMORPG convertible

Main Class:
Every player starts out as one of 3 classes: Fighter (Warrior), Mage, or Rogue (Thief). I remember debating fighter as the beginning class; I had it down when I finally got to the Melee users but the table hierarchy and title page still had "Warrior Classes". I'm going with Fighter because that makes the most sense because many of my Fighter character classes have Warrior in their name but the base says fighter. In Urak you develop a specific subclass with various trainers and quests.

Subclass:
A big part of my game is class, not just your base class but your subclass. I have a total of 81 character classes. That seems large but they are very organized and balanced. There is much more to your class as you grow in level.

The class title is based on level. At some point you may become a lord of your faith. There you gain the highest title of all. I've set aside about 72 or 81 character titles, unique to individual players in Urak. I haven't decided yet but there could be more or less than 81, but not less than 72.

Having chosen a main class and "alliance" (faith) make it easy to choose from 81 subclasses because there are 27 subclasses per main class and 9 subclasses per faith. Choose a main class + faith leaves 3 subclasses (less if your race cannot be some). Since you choose your race, main class, and main faith before subclass, you have plenty of time in game to explore your options.

The subclasses are very specific so you can choose distinctly between them. Choosing a subclass grants you access to subclass specific specializations so you can make your character more unique and powerful in the way you wish to focus. There are main class, race, and faith specific specializations too... maybe?

Race:
There is an equal amount of races players choose from for each faith. Almost every faith has "Giant" and "Tiny" races and are capable of adding both to all faiths. I have reserved 3 races initially possibly 4 for each faith with 2 possibly 1 more expanded ideas (Game expansion?).

The MMO races should not be stuck with their own faith's subclasses to choose from, because I feel Archons should be able to learn to be an Enchanter, a Golgothan could be a Wizard. However there are those races which cannot be or do certain things. I haven't worked them out completely but I know they will make sense and stay true to the lore. I'm with you on half orcs. It fits my ideas and is plausible.

Alignment:
Alignment in this game is important. The limitations are the same as yours Boaster, but there's a bit of a twist. The idea works out nicely and has been one of my biggest motivations for character development.

Good, Evil, Chaos, Lawful do fit and make sense for the Arcane? faiths to center around these interpretations. Although Death isn't inherently evil since death is the natural course of life.

Alliance:
I don't really have much about how the alliances would interact in a MMORPG setting. I'm still thinking. My only wishes is that there be no limitations other than personal preference. I hate restricting players to only certain alliances in parties or groups. Since there are not good or evil races/faiths, maybe Life/Death to some degree, players aren't opposed to any single faith for those reasons. There is good and evil all around, since Balkoth introduced famine and pestilence.

I do feel as you do Boaster, that Balkoth was defeated in this game. 200 years later is good with me. I'll admit I don't have any lore that I've added, just my interpretations of what was written. Nothing game changing.

When one faith controls all of the temples in the land of Urak, the world ends. What does it mean when the world ends? That will be for the players to find out.

Of this I have many ideas that expand/add to the lore. I'm secretive about them. I kinda did it all as an after thought, but it's been so long.

[thandu]

There are certainly times when good vs. good or evil vs. evil so to speak.

I still think 81 classes is difficult to make them all fully unique from one another.

Thats why I have 17 classes, and every grouping is able to utilize all class by at least one race.

Not to say that groupings are limited unless you're on a PvP server, you'll just be unable to group with your opposite faith unless via another faith being group leader. You'll also be kill on sight to the guards of those major cities and towns.

Large races and small races are viable to both have, as larger races have bigger reach for higher levers and dangling treasures and the like, while Smaller races can fit into caverns. More medium sized races have more rounded stats and usually have more available classes (all human races have 12 available classes)


8 or 9 way Pvp is MESSY! Having each faith practically on their own, even with a full enough class access is going to be unbalancing.


Smaller races really mean TINY races for the most part. There are small races such as dwarves of both kinds, Halflings, Faeries and Goblins, but I mean the tiny races: Gnomes (earth/death), Brownies (Life/Water), Imps (Fire/Chaos) and Pixies (Air/Order) which are vital to dungeon crawling. Not a must have, but they make treks a bit easier, and allow you to find more hidden treasures.

[Venture Industries]

I don't like to group the faiths into larger alliances due to respect for the original game. I think each has it's own unique way of being independent from the other faiths and races, giving faiths their character. I'm sure they mesh well in later fantasy genres. Lords of Magic was unique in the way the lore almost implied "Before D&D" and before a great mix, in the future, of race/faith collisions and intermingling like humans and elves, or humans and dwarves.

81 classes was difficult to make them all fully unique from one another. There is always a bit of symmetry. But that symmetry is what makes a juxtaposition of any two classes stand out even more. Every element and faith gives it's own unique flare to a given class. Sure, there are many areas of overlap, like a thief of any color is still a thief. What is beneath and inside the thief that gives its very own flare. I'd like to think a LOM RPG is going to be very different, not just by the story alone, from other fantasy games of similar settings. That's why I'd hate to use just the old tried and true classes that have always been. I would like to see something more brought to the table as far as gameplay, game mechanics, and balances.

Balance:
The balance of Urak: there was no balance. No balance simply means there wasn't clone faiths. Every faith has it's own strategy. If a player truly wanted to balance with it's neighbor, he could simply build a mage tower or barracks of the neighbor.

PvP and PvP Balance:
I'm not one for jumping right into the game mechanics. I'm more for concept and idea making which I'm still perfecting. I'm not developing a game just yet, just sharing ideas. If I'd make a PvP server for my concept, it would be a "everyone for themself" mentality. Orcs of the same "faith" can clash just like they would in "real life". Player alliances would dominate who couldn't attack each other. If the largest Elvish-Brownie Life alliance wishes to make a peace accord with a small Pixie alliance then the leaders set the respective truce and they don't attack each other because the players see them as "green" or friendly. If you are a Gnome who wishes to go to a safe city, it would be wise to have good relations with the guards of that city.

PvE:
In a PvE setting, players of the opposite faith are not at war. If you want to have PvP battles on a PvE server, you'd have to have each participant "sworn to protect" that faith or "hired mercs". Then if they both have declarations of war then they members can go at it. Not every Elf or Human has to be caught in the crossfire. Every player by default is neutral.

---

It's nice to know you have disagreements on some general issues. I'm more about sharing what I have, than changing your concept to mine. You are perfectly entitled to your ideas. I'd prefer we don't share the exact same ideas for an RPG. I'm trying to get away from a WoW mentality because it dominates the MMO market and is not the defacto way to have players interact. Why can't the Orcish Hordes attack the Blood Elf capital if it wanted?

I welcome more criticisms you have since I would like to put more thought into my flaws. Some concern I have about your races: How is a Death Gnome different from an Earth Gnome, if they are different? How do those two FAITHS get along as part of an alliance? I see you're putting Earth and Death in the same alliance. I'm just wondering what a Gnome can do: what classes if any can they be? I've always assumed Order/Water, Life/Air, Fire/Chaos, Death/Earth seemed like pairs only because they shared cavalry (more than just lazy designers, perhaps with some lore). Elves share a history with Fae, windriders, and the giants who created them both. Water mages and life mages are healers types and an alliance would concentrate all healer types in that alliance perhaps? I'm really not sure what Earth and Death have in common. They seems like pairs, but for no other reasons than cavalry.

[Boaster]

If I can put in a few thoughts...

...as far as "wars" between faiths go, I think that they would be world events. Such that, a "war" between Life vs Death would allow players who worship those two faiths to participate in the wars. This would be the PvP aspect of the RPG.

Wars would be initiated based on a player basis. Such that, if after a certain amount of "unique" duels between two players of differing faiths is achieved, say there's 100 unique battles (different players) between Life worshipers and Death worshipers in a 12 hour period, it would activate a "War." Or at the end of the weak, the two faiths with the most duels against each other would activate a week long war between those two faiths. Wars between two faiths cannot repeat in the same month.

When adventuring PvE, each player's faith will be taken into account. This will be the deciding factor in which faiths are allied. Allied faiths will be able to aid in wars, but by invitation only.


Just a few thoughts on PvP and PvE mechanics involving wars and alliances.


And.… I still think races and faiths should be determined independently from one another. ;D

[Venture Industries]

Faith is different from alliance, lore of the Urakian story mentions humans in different faiths like death, life, air, and fire. I'm not discriminating against any race, in fact I conceptualize a very player oriented world. If you are Archon necromancer, you would not be an Order worshiper because you're necromancer. Classes are tide to faiths due to the nature of the lore.

In LOMSE, you could capture the Golgothan city as life and create necromancers. This doesn't not change their faith but their alliance. The Gods of Urak grant the powers of magic to their faithful believers. As a Wizard you are inextricably tided to Lawful ways and will be at home under the allegiance of almost any Lord but keep your faith.

The top members of the Order classes (Wizard, Paladin, Ranger) would be eligible to be the leaders of the Order Alliance. For the most part players don't adhere to an alliance unless willing. Lords of Magic are the exception and are tide to their alliance.

How a war is determined is based on some kind of player determined proclamation. If there are no player created wars something like what you said could happen.

When adventuring PvE, each player's faith will be taken into account. This will be the deciding factor in which faiths are allied. Allied faiths will be able to aid in wars, but by invitation only.

Would you clarify what "taken into account" entails. I'm not sure if you mean to limit class interaction or if you mean a tally of most frequent groupings will join alliances.

I'm not sure how to limit class interaction. I someways the idea makes sense, however I wouldn't want to hinder player creativity. I really want to imitate what can be done on LOMSE and what is reasonable.
I feel strategic partnerships are necessary between alliances. I would think players would enter into them for protection of key resources. I have a feeling some alliances (faiths) will be less populated than others. This is only natural. The incentives to making alliances will bridge more than just classes but player interactivity.

And.… I still think races and faiths should be determined independently from one another.

This is kinda independent. However, players still start in their respective areas. If a Fae wishes to choose a Life class they adopt the faith by default but not necessarily the alliance.

[Boaster]

Would you clarify what "taken into account" entails. I'm not sure if you mean to limit class interaction or if you mean a tally of most frequent groupings will join alliances.

Yes. Faith based interactions will determine enemies and alliances. Frequent player duels between Order & Water would naturally make them enemies on a grander scale. Order and Water worshiping players joining teams to adventure would naturally cancel out one duel. So interactions would have to be strongly one way or the other. Of course faith relations can also be neutral (i.e. shades of gray).

Player interactions would be logged on each server/realm.


As far as an Archon "Necromancer" I don't think that would be the case, in my book of ideas. A character's class title/specialty would not be determined by race, but faith and class.

- An Archon, or Human, Wizard that worships Death would be a Necromancer.
- A Golgothan Wizard that worships Water would be a Priest/Priestess.
- A Giant Wizard that worships Life would be an Enchanter/Enchantress.
- A Lizard Wizard (heheh, just sounds funny) that worships Fire would be a Sorcerer/Sorceress.

You might be thinking, well Air and Fire Wizard's would both be "Sorcerers..." well, an Air Wizard would be Storm Sorcerer and a Fire Wizard would be a Flame/Pyro Sorcerer.


But again, all this is in my book of ideas.

[Venture Industries]

That's very interesting way to handle relations between alliances. I'm going to have to think on it more and compare the merits of it over full player autonomy.

I don't think "Archon Necromancers" really fit my ideas exactly. I have an idea that and Archon who learns to be a Necromancer will be simply a Necromancer. However I have special circumstances where if a particular race were to be a certain class, they may have a different class title. I haven't worked it all out but it may not happen. I guess I should reveal more of my classes and races I've included.

I have a question about Wizards who worship Death. Do they still have Wizard spells or what happens? They become full Necromancers?

[Boaster]

Apr 3, 2009 21:35:56 GMT -6 Venture Industries said:

That's very interesting way to handle relations between alliances. I'm going to have to think on it more and compare the merits of it over full player autonomy.

I don't think "Archon Necromancers" really fit my ideas exactly. I have an idea that and Archon who learns to be a Necromancer will be simply a Necromancer. However I have special circumstances where if a particular race were to be a certain class, they may have a different class title. I haven't worked it all out but it may not happen. I guess I should reveal more of my classes and races I've included.

I have a question about Wizards who worship Death. Do they still have Wizard spells or what happens? They become full Necromancers?

Well, I use the term "Wizard" loosely. An Archon Wizard that worships Death would be a Necromancer, but still be a "Wizard" in terms of the base class.

I suppose it would be best to call Order Wizard's "Magicians" and call Earth Wizard's Geomancers... or just call the base class Mage instead of Wizard.

[thandu]

The thing that keeps races to a certain faith is the story. The story tells of how and why many races hold their loyalty to a certain faith.

Sure, a few oddballs stray away, but because Archons sometimes feel the pull of dread powers, they have access to the Warlock class.

Besides which, the idea of fire lizards aren't found anywhere nor Order/Life/Death/Chaos Giants (even if there are Ogres and Cyclopses.)


To generalize as 'human' doesn't work too well. Assuredly, there are 3 human subspecies: Archons, Barbarians and Viantha/Amazons. There is also a green skinned witch unit that could probably be an expanded upon race concept (which I did do)

The idea of halfbreeds, as I've touched upon, can be a bit whacky!

You have 3/4 breeds of human and 2 known breeds of elf. Together that means you can have 6 or 8 mutt species. Kinda confusing, and let's not get all bent outta whack about how a Eldren/Dark Elf crossbred elf would look... or work without a dagger being inserted first.

There's also two distinct species of Dwarves, with Red Dwarves besides being awesome and somewhat original, being commonly beardless subspecie, with the other being the other subspecie following the more typical dwarven mold.

I'm sure they could mixbreed, combining fire and earth... who knows! My idea is that the species is that of the mother. Same would happen if either bred with a gnome.

Then there are half orcs/ogres which adds 6 or 8 more half human species, not to mention orcs and ogres breed with each other.


Its likely that the Rock Hurler unit may actually be a Barbarian/Fire Giant crossbreed. I might be wrong about the whole Lesser Giants thing, for it might be the current Fire Giants that are 'lessers' to the ancient Fire Giants that created them. I'm mostly hazy on this, but the idea is open.



But regardless, the idea of so much open ended play gives the player too much power. MMOs are usually static unless the corporate programmers decide a world changing money charging (read: expansion) event that adds new content.

The static feel allows newcomers the freedom to experience the world fully.

That's why I've done what I've done. I don't want to punish newcomers or make people hate their peers due to their actions effecting the entire server gameworld.


Perhaps Roleplaying servers can allow more freedoms than usual, but they come at a price of needing to RP your character or face removal from the server for a time.

And the idea of ignoring gameply balance can work in a game that doesn't need to be Multiplayer, but in an MMO, many players complain/quit due to imbalances.

There will be ways to make faith important. One is a shared spell that Sages, Wizards and Elementalists possess called Faith Bolt. Faith Bolt is an instant cast spell that strikes with the caster's faith and has a high chance to score a critical.

Faithed characters will enjoy innate resistances to their element, and will find themselves affinitied to certain stats.

Strength: Fire
Dexterity: Death
Agility: Air
Stamina: Earth
Intelligence: Water
Wisdom: Life
Spirit: Chaos
Charisma: Order

THIS IS WHY THERE ARE EIGHT STATS!


Anyone of the faith with stat affinity will gain an extra +2 to that stat every level on top of whatever stats the class normally gets.

I suppose you COULD go to another Faith's nation and train there, leveling and gaining enough faction to earn their trust or devotion, but it's not a simple measure of just becoming the faith, there are gods: Llanwylen, Golgoth, the Triad, Synora, Ancient Air Giants, the Animal Spirits and so on. You must earn favor in their eyes to earn the right to gain some of their benefits.

You cannot join the ranks of an opposite faith. A Faerie may never join Earth and a Barbarian cannot join Order.

By joining another faith, you can get +1 of that faith's favored stat per level on top of your own. You may not join more than one other faith at a time, but you can end your affinity to choose another. You will lose your stats though, and the quests to join a faith are long.

You cannot outright quit your main faith. If called upon by the forces of Life, A Dryad will always return to the forest meadows to defend her homeland as top priority, but she can grow an affinity for fire or chaos or air (anything actually, except death because its an opposite)

You will not gain spell resistance to the elements of the faith you join. Be aware, trying to join another faith on PvP or Extended Ally PvP can be tough if you're not joining one of your closest allies. Expect to suffer death (though PvP deaths grant only a penalty to your PvP points which let you purchase nifty items and equipment tht are mostly PvP based.)

Once you join said faith, you will not be Kill on Sight with the players unless you group up with a group leader that is against them. You are allowed to defend yourself, provided someone strikes you first.



Then again, let's think. What's to stop a gnome from studying Arcane Faith magics yet still stay loyal to the rest of Earth. Surely there is an advantage to such tactics. Besides, if a Fire follower studied Chaos magic, he'd be pretty much on the same path, except there'd be a bit less burn and a bit more random (then again, it might just explode because its unpredictable)


As far as thieves and Warrior classes are concerned, the path you take should be open ended. Its just picking up a weapon and learning how to swing it right. All warriors can use Berserking and Parry, it should stand to reason that all faiths should have access to some sort of tankish warrior and a Berserkish style kill warrior... and they do.


Class distribution is mostly logical based on starting faith and the race's stature/ways with a few story addition based changes (such as a good quarter or so of the Brownie choices)

If my math is correct (and it usually is cuz I'm a math wiz) there are a total of 302 race/class combos. I will, in due time, reveal them all and give some explanation for each choice.