Post
by Gallows » Sun Jul 05, 2020 2:41 pm
Here's a rough concept I thought up. It's nowhere near finished but it's a start. If any of these concepts sound ill-fitting, or are particularly appealing, then please do suggest ways to improve the idea.
The runemaster is a leather wearing class that uses mana. Its specialized weapons are fist weapons, maces, and staves. The runemaster can also equip shields.
--Runes--
The runemasters core abilities such as buffing and activating circles would operate on a reagant being Runes. As you leveled up your collection of runes would grow via class quests or dungeon drops, each having different purposes. Depending on which runes you'd have on you in your rune bag (similar to how hunters have quivers or ammo pouches) your rune activation and buff spells would have different effects.
These runestones would NOT be depleted after use, and would be unique.
--Ley Points/classes of augmentation runes--
One of the core concepts of the runemaster as it was initially idealized was the concept of leylines, and that the runemaster seeked to become one with the leylines, to be a part of the leylines. This would essentially mean four or five different ley-points, all being a different slot for a runic augmentation. In your rune bag, you could only carry one rune of each class of rune.
Here's a hypothetical demonstration:
Augmentation runes would come in four types. A blue rune, an orange rune, a green rune, and a purple rune.
These four augmentation runes would correlate to different aspects of your character. Blue for the body, red for the fists, green for the spirit, and purple for the mind. (Again, this is a hypothetical demonstration to explain my idea for runes and how they would work. These four colors or aspects are not necessarily the ideal.)
So there could be one blue rune, say, the rune of thorns. The effect of this rune increases your armor and deals damage to attackers. Then another blue rune, the rune of frost, would slow attackers when they hit you, and yet another blue rune, the rune of fortitude, would simply have the effect of increasing armor and stamina by a substantial amount.
However, you can only place one of these three runes in your rune bag at once to be used as your blue rune of choice. Think of it as equipping a piece of gear essentially. When you are in combat, you would not be able to switch around the runes in your bag.
You would then activate these runes with a spell corresponding to each type of rune, "[color] Augmentation Rune," which would activate that augmentation rune's effect for a duration of 30 minutes or so.
A later spell, Runic Focus, would be a short duration buff that increases the effect of all of your augmentation runes by 15% or so. This could also be a spell earned via a talent in the runemaster's augmentation focused tree. (we can get to talent trees once we have a general baseline kit established, but I envision one focused on healing, one focused on augmentation (tanking or dps,) and one focused on spells and circles (dps.))
Augmentation rune colors/aspects/classes in more detail:
Blue: defensive upgrades. Things like thorns, a slow upon hit, or just plain more armor, sometimes stamina.
Orange: offensive upgrades. Weapon enchantments (like adding arcane damage, or increasing attack speed, critical strike, or threat generation for tanking) and strength & agility. There would also be healing-focused red runes which would be cast time reduction or bonus healing.
Green: mixed bag of stats like stamina, spirit, bonus healing, and healing effects (like a small HoT added to normal heals) or increased self regeneration after being hit for a certain amount.
Purple: intellect and spell crit, dps spell effects, mana cost reduction.
--Rune circles--
These would be AoE circles that the runemaster places on the ground, and then triggers.
These would also have their own set of aspects correlating to different effects, but in a different way:
There would be three types of circle runes, correlating to how the effects are activated. A red rune, a yellow rune, and a cyan rune.
The red rune's purpose is a burst of power - instantly enacting its effects upon cast/placement.
The yellow rune's purpose is a sustained, strategic pulse - its effects could be triggered multiple times, however each of those times would cost mana.
The cyan rune's purpose is a momentary effect that begins the moment it is placed, good for things like buffs, debuffs, healing over time, slows, etc.
The rules for circle runes would work similar to augmentation runes: you could only have one of each aspect in your rune bag at once, and there would be a variety of choices.
--Runestones--
The runestone would be a placeable, static entity that would create a small AOE burst of your non-rune powered ranged or magical melee spells. Think of it as every time you cast a heal, this static entity replicates a portion of that heal in a very small area. This also would apply to non-rune damaging spells for DPS runemasters. There would only be one runestone allowed to be place at a time, so its positioning would be vital.
--Ley Healing--
Lorewise, the runemaster would heal using the arcane magic of leylines, as was described in the warcraft RPG. These basic healing spells would not be augmented by runes, but would be effected by rune markings.
--Rune markings--
Rune markings would allow the runemaster to be able to mark one target per party (thus multiple targets in a raid) for bonuses of every healing spell you cast to be distributed to them (or for a larger healing spell to be split amongst them,) however the markings must be a certain distance close to eachother at a time or they wouldn't connect.
--Non-rune-augmented spells--
The runemaster would also possess quite a few more traditional spells, unaffected by what runes you'd have selected.
Most damage the runemaster would output would be arcane and frost.
Some examples of spell ideas:
Runic Strike
Empowers your next melee strike with runic arcane energy, causing your next 3 auto attacks to also do bonus arcane energy
5 second cooldown
Requires melee weapon
On next melee
Costs mana
Cold Strike
Hit the enemy with a chilling blow that decreases their armor by 4% for 12 seconds
8 second cooldown
Requires melee weapon
Instant
Costs mana
Biting Frost
Hit the enemy with a frost-rune empowered strike, slowing their movement and casting time by 15% for 10 seconds.
50 second cooldown
Requires melee weapon
Instant
Costs mana
Runic Sweep
Perform a sweeping strike in a cone in front of you, dealing arcane damage to up to 4 enemies.
1 minute cooldown
Requires staves
Instant
Costs mana
Emancipation
Use your knowledge of the ley lines to free yourself from a snare or root.
3 minute cooldown
Instant
Costs mana
Ley-Point Strike
When your enemy is below 10% health, strike their ley pressure point for an execution.
15 minute cooldown
Requires melee weapon
Instant
Costs mana
Rune Word: Soothing
Places a Rune of Soothing on the target, which after 12 seconds will heal them for [set amount]
Shares 2 minute cooldown with other Rune Words.
Instant
Costs mana
Rune Word: Repellence
Knocks the target back away from you.
Shares 2 minute cooldown with other Rune Words.
Instant
Costs mana
Rune Word: Fury
Increases your attack speed by 10% for 12 seconds.
Shares 2 minute cooldown with other Rune Words.
Instant
Costs mana
Ley Hardening
Empower your shield with runic arcane energy, reducing all damage taken by 50% for 6 seconds.
5 minute cooldown
Requires shields
Instant
Costs mana
Runic Construct
Empower a small runic construct who will taunt and attack your target for 12 seconds.
8 minute cooldown
1 second cast
Costs mana
Realignment
Heal your target for [set amount] over 3 seconds.
Channeled
Costs mana
Forbidding Runes
Creates a small runic circle around the enemy target that they cannot pass through for 8 seconds. Your allies may pass through as they please.
1.5 second cast
Costs mana
Earthen Origins (Dwarf runemaster racial passive)
The effects of all blue augmentation runes are increased by 2%
One With the Spirits (Tauren runemaster racial passive)
The effect of all green augmentation runes are increased by 2%
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Overall, my idea for a runemaster is a class whose gameplay is based around positioning strategy and build customization, embodying the wisdom and knowledge of ancient runes and leylines to utilize them for whatever one could need.
Again, this is just the beginning of conceptualization, barely even close to a basic concept.
So, what are everyone's thoughts and ideas?
Slowly turtling my way up.
