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• New abilities

BitsySpider: I'd actually rather call them talents than abilities, but that's just quibbling on my part. These are the things that you learn off the "N" screen.

Trying to add at least one talent for every skill, though I'll probably draw a few blanks. An asterisk indicates a skill that already has at least one talent associated with it.

Combat*

• Endurance Requires 15 Combat, costs 10 points, Adds 2 to hit dice.

  Rage Requires 20 Combat, costs 5 points. Defensive tactics do not give an AC bonus, offensive do not give AC penalty.

  Armor Mastery Requires 15 Combat, costs 10 points. Gain a 15% bonus on the base AC/DR of the armour you are wearing - this is not applied item-by-item(+15% on your helm, +15% on your boots...) but rather to the total.

  Shield Mastery Requires 15 Combat, costs 10 points. Gain a 20% bonus on the shield base AC.

  Thick-skinned Requires 10 Combat and 22 Constitution. Gain 10% resistance to fire and shards, and ignore 1 point of damage from them.

Weaponmastery

• Mighty Blow Requires 10 Weaponmastery, costs 10 points, adds 5 damage to every attack with a 2 handed weapon.

Sword Mastery

• Raking Strike Requires 15 SM, costs 10 points, Adds a bleeding effect to all sword weapons carried.

Critical Hits

• Hamstring Requires 10 CH, costs 5 points, successful critical strikes reduce the speed of the target slightly.

Axe Mastery

• Crippling Blow Requires 20 AM, costs 10 points, successful axe attacks reduce target's defense.

Hafted Mastery

• Whip Mastery Requires 10 HM, costs 10 points. If character is wielding a whip or flail, they get +1 attack.

Stunning Blows

• Lingering Daze Requires 25 SB, costs 5 points. Anything that gets stunned by a Stunning Blows attack automatically fails casting the next spell.

Polearm Mastery*

• Set for Charge Requires 10 PM, costs 5 points. Adds 5 damage per strike to any polearm attack against a faster creature.

Archery*

• Called Shot Requires 20 Archery, costs 10 points. Any ranged attack has a random chance of damaging target's speed, max hp, or damage dice.

  Arched Shot Requires 30 Archery, costs 5 points. This grants an activatable ('m' key) ability that turns the player's archery shot into a ball-0 spell rather than as a bolt, allowing the player to fire over the head of other monsters to specifically strike a particular square. This should also be subject to normal "to-hit" procedures, however.

Sling Mastery

• Scrounge Ammunition Requires 5 SM, costs 3 points. If no ammunition equipped, the character is automatically considered to have vanilla bullets equipped when shooting.

Bow Mastery

• Sniper Shot Requires 20 BM, costs 10 points. Automatic critical if target is asleep.

Crossbow Mastery

• Piercing Shot Requires 20 CM, costs 15 points. 10% of target's armor is ignored.

Boomerang Mastery

• Throwing Mastery Requires 5 BM, costs 5 points. Thrown melee weapons return to inventory.

Barehand Combat

• Chi Strike Requires 40 Barehand Combat, 20 Spirituality, costs 20 points. Barehanded hits are considered to have all of the basic brand types.

Bearform Combat

• Wild Rage Requires 20 Bearform Combat, costs 20 points. Beorning changes into a more powerful bear body with a potent set of resistances (i.e. IMM_COLD, res_fear, res_conf, etc...)

Boulder Throwing

Antimagic

• Doom Mage (AnonymousHero) Requires 40 Antimagic, costs 20 points. Adds 10% cumulative spell failure to all enemies hit by a melee attack. (Might even want to change to apply to ranged attacks since antimagic users usually have 100% antimagic in a limited radius anyway. Not sure what with possible to changes to antimagic mechanics

Sneakiness

• Fleet of Foot Requires 10 sneakiness, costs 7 points. Player gains a +2 bonus to his walking speed.

  Danger Sense Requires 10 Sneakiness, costs 5 points. Player has a chance to detect traps in a 2 square radius instead of just adjacent tiles.

Backstab

• Assassination If backstabbing strike deals more than 1/3rd of target's hp, target dies automatically.

Disarming*

• Trap Recovery (ShadUs) Trap Recovery Gives you a 5% chance to recover traps that you disarm. This would give trappers an ability like ammo creation... traps are quite bit more common than dungeon debris though so a low %age chance of recovery of a trap. The current disarming ability kinda sucks, almost anything would be better.

Dodging

• Unnatural Agility (ShadUs)Unnatural/Supernatural Agility No idea on cost but high... level 40+ high with a high dex also, gives a chance for characters dodge breath weapon and aoe attacks (this would require some balancing and it may just flat be over powered, but might would open some interesting avenues up for new character types)

Stealing

• Pick Pockets Requires 10 Stealing, costs 5 points, Rogues get it at creation. Using "Y" to a hostile creature steals an object from their inventory. (Farming Smeagol for rings of invis would be kind of strange plotwise, though)

Stealth

• Silent Step Requires 10 Stealth, costs 5 points. Tactics and Movement no longer generate stealth penalties, though cowardly tactics and slow pace will still give stealth bonuses.

Magic*

Magic Device

• Transfer Power Requires 25 Magic Device, costs 10 points. Adds ability to menu which drains one item in inventory to recharge another item in inventory. Not particularly efficient, but no chance of losing recharged item.

Spell Power

• Focus Requires 30 Spell Power, costs 5 points. Adds ability to menu. When ability is used, all spells for the next 10 rounds cost 100% more and are cast at +5 spell levels.

Sorcery

• Mana/Energy Shield (ShadUs) Mana Shield Due to extensive health damage Sorcerers learn to rely on other methods to stay alive, mana shield shunts 5% of damage per 10 levels of sorcery (max 25%) into your mana pool instead of health pool.

Demonology

• Corruption's Flow Requires 30 demonology and at least one corruption, costs 15 points. Adds ability to menu. Ability removes a random corruption and replaces it with a different one. Ability costs sanity to use.

Necromancy*

• The Black Wizard Requires 50 Necromancy and 50 Sorcery, Sauron must be dead, costs 20 points. If the character dies while wearing the One Ring, he or she reappears at Barad-Dur in full health without the ring. The character dies if they destroy the One Ring.

Runecraft

Thaumaturgy

• Talent Weaving Requires 30 Thaumaturgy, costs 20 points. Adds ability to menu. When ability activated, next two thaumaturgy powers switch base levels. (i.e. you can "update" a useful power to a higher level)

Alchemy*

• Potent Venom Requires 10 Alchemy, costs 3 points. Damage done by thrown potions is doubled.

  Identify Fountains: Requires 30 Alchemy, costs 20 points. If a fountian has been seen/sensed/mapped, then the player will know what type of potion it contains.

Geomancy

• The Brown Wizard Requires 50 Geomancy, 50 Nature, Radagast (if he exists?) must be dead, costs 20 points. Character can walk on any terrain type as if it were open floor.

Fire

Each of the Elemental school abilities (i.e. Fire/Earth/etc...) are exclusive: a character cannot have more than one.

• Channel Heat Requires 20 Fire, costs 10 points. Damage dealt by fire spells is increased by 10% if cast in a lava or deep lava square.

  The Grey Wizard Requires 50 Mana, 50 Fire, Gandalf must be dead, costs 20 points. Character gains telepathy.

Water

• Ulmo's Wrath Requires 20 Water, costs 10 points. Damage dealt by water spells is increased by 10% if cast in a water or deep water square.

Earth

• Golgarach's Blessing Requires 20 Earth, costs 10 points. Damage dealt by earth spells is increased by 10% unless standing in lava or water or sand.

Air

• Manwe's Fury Requires 20 Air, costs 10 points. Damage dealt by air spells is increased by 10% unless cast in an area where water breathing or breathe without air is required.

Mana

• Arcane Lance Requires 25 Mana, costs 15 points. Manathrust becomes a beam attack instead of a targeted attack.

Conveyance

• Continuum Control Requires 20 Conveyance, costs 10 points. Player may not be teleported by anything but their own effects.

Divination

• All-seeing Gaze Requires 25 Divination, costs 5 points. Player receives full information when looking at monsters.

  The White Wizard Requires 50 Divination, 50 Mana, Saruman must be dead, costs 20 points. The spell costs of Divination and Mana spells are reduced by 20%. The character loses this title if their Udun increases above 0, they worship Melkor, or they equip the One Ring.

Temporal

• Ends Life, Kills Laughter Requires 30 Time, costs 10 points. Slow spells now do damage in addition to slowing effect.

Mind

• Calm Mind Requires 10 Mind, costs 5 points. Increases base sanity by 50%. Calm Mind (ShadUs Alternate version) Reduces sanity damage by 25%.

Nature*

Udun

• Blood Magic Requires 10 Udun, costs 10 points. If the character does not have enough mp to cast a spell, hp are used instead.

Spirituality

• Transcendence Requires 15 Spirituality, costs 30 points. Character only takes 1/3rd normal sanity damage.

  Fate Manipulation Requires 30 Spirituality, costs 5 points. Character gains ability to sacrifice 1% of gp to give themselves a new fate.

Prayer

• Divine Grace Requires 20 Prayer, costs 10 points. Luck is increased by (Prayer -20)/2.

  Divine Favor Requires 25 Prayer, God must be Eru, costs 10 points. Eru resurrection always works and sets piety at 0 instead of negative.

  Divine Majesty Requires 25 Prayer, God must be Manwe, costs 10 points. Character is immune to time.

  Divine Bounty Requires 25 Prayer, God(dess) must be Yavanna, costs 10 points. Character gains +150 hp.

  Divine Fury Requires 25 Prayer, God must be Tulkas, costs 10 points. Character gains +1 attack.

  Infernal Blessing Requires 25 Prayer, God must be Melkor, costs 10 points. Character gains +100 mp.

Mindcraft

• Iron Will Requires 30 Mindcraft, costs 20 points. Mindwave and Neural Blast damage become unresistable "mana" type damage.

Monster Lore

• Exploit Weakness Requires 10 Monster Lore, costs 10 points. Player deals +5 combat damage per hit against monsters where the player knows all of the monster's information.

Music

All of the music talents are exclusive, a character can only take one. All require 30 music and cost 10.

• Secrets of the Galadrim The character can cast spells from a bow (as long as the bow has a pval) as if it were a harp. Elves (and subraces of Elf) automatically get +1 to the pval.

  Songs of the Rohirrim Heroic Ballad also increases melee damage. This creates an aggravate effect if the singer is not human (or a human-related, such as Rohirrim, Dunadan, etc...)

  Beer Hall Chants of the Dwarves Doubles the power of the "Stun Pattern" song. Doubles the cost as well unless the singer is a dwarf or related.

  There and Back Again Hobbit Melodies also improves the singer's stealth. If the singer is a halfling, also increases saves.

  Songs of the Wild Flow of Life has a very high chance of putting nearby animals to sleep. If the singer is a wild thing (Ent, Yeek, etc...) it charms them instead.

  Goblin Songs Song of the Sun no longer creates light, instead it causes darkness damage in a radius around the singer. The darkness damage is improved if the singer is an Orc, Troll, etc...

Summoning

Corpse Preservation

• Weight Reduction/Taxidermy (ShadUs)Weight Reduction Reduces the weight of a corpse it is used on to 5% of its original weight or 5lbs whichever is higher.

Possession

• Swap Bodies (ShadUs) Swap Bodies Swap bodies with a living creature, they become you, you become them. Cannot be used on Uniques, chance of a successful swap based on skill level and relative level compared to monster. On a failure you're left outside of your body and they're left in their body

Symbiosis

• Share Undeath Requires 20 Symbiosis, 10 Necromancy, costs 5 points. Can use Undead as symbiote instead of just non-moving.

Mimicry

• Monster Mimicry (ShadUs) You learn the ability to mimic monsters around you for a short period of time.

Chatter

DarkGod: Good, I was looking for more ways to differentiate players

• NeilStevens: New abilities would only differentiate players as long as it took to determine the new optimal skill point layout, just like it was with skills in the first place.

  • KhymChanur: The ability_type structure currently has a forbid_abilities field, which can be as an anti-prequisite list: abilities that the player can't have if s/he wants to buy that abiltiy. That can provide some differntation, if there are two or more abilities that players would commonly buy as a group if able, but are only allowed to buy one. We could also make a forbid_skills field, skills for which you must have below a certain level to buy the ability, and if you do buy that ability then that becomes a cap above which you can't raise the skill.

  DarkGod: In a way yes, IMO the point is more to provide nice but not game shattering effects. If the effects are different enough different people will want different types of improvments sinec htye will suit their way of playing more instead of making them all powerful.

  • BitsySpider: Part of the intent on some of the abilities (like the 2 handed weapon thing) is to specialize a character further, which may give a bonus but isn't always an advantage (i.e. 1 handed Ringil). Some of these abilities are designed to hedge up powers (such as Bearform Combat) which are otherwise weak or unpredictable. The elemental damage boosts require a change in tactics to be useful. Some of these are just flavor. If "Beer Hall Chants of the Dwarves" gets coded, I'm definitely playing a dwarven bard, regardless of what the ability does. Might even make for a fun competition character.

Remuz: (fixed some formatting). This is really interesting, and would add a lot of variety to the game. I like it. The bonus for Spirituality and Prayer may be a bit overpowered, though, and bonus for Weaponmastery could be extended to not only 2-handed weapons, to make it more useful (up the cost a bit for that, around 15 should be enough, I think).

• BitsySpider: The two-handed restriction is kinda the point- it's not free damage, it's "two handed specialization." Nerfed the spirit/prayer ones a bit.

  Remuz: Fair enough, I was not too sure myself, to be honest. I like the spirit and prayer and spirit abilities, especially the one for Yavanna. The one for Tulkas may a bit overpowered, but it is hard to tell, since we don't know how useful they will be yet (based on the current tome version, I would make the ability for Yavanna the more powerful, as an incitation to worship that god. Eru and Melkor would get a small bonus, as those gods are useful already).

ShadUs: Not sure if you mind other people adding to the list, I'm not going to put costs on mine because I have no idea what they should be for balance... for Disarming the current ability sucks imo... A better replacement might be

• BitsySpider: Go ahead. It's why it's a wiki. Just put a tag on yours so we know who did what.

  ShadUs: heh, I've been part of a few wiki's... some people are freaky about pages they start.

  Remuz: I don't like the sorcery ability, as it helps to negate the only drawback with sorcerors (lack of hp). Sorcerors are very powerful already, so I think we need a bonus that is nice, but not *too* nice. I would replace it with a bonus to enhance their good side, to make them even more glass-canon-like. A bonus to spellpower or mana could be nice (albeit highly unoriginal), and would not be *too* appealing (need to think about a better suggestion, here).

  BitsySpider: Actually, it might make sense to make that a Mana ability instead of a Sorcery ability. Sorcerors could still take it, but they'd have to spend points in a redundant school to activate it.

LordDimwit: I personally like the idea of critical hits with a given weapon causing alternate effects rather than just more damage... I think this might have potential for some of the 'activate on hit' effects in ToME 3 as well (activate on critical, max activation of once per turn?).

• BitsySpider: The only caveat to being too liberal with "activate on crit" abilities is the Tulkas spell which makes all hits crits. Not impossible to work around, but definitely something to be cautious with.

Zonk: More abilities would be nice indeed. A small review of some abilities, even though I have to admit I'm not really an expert of game balance.I just hope these suggestions aren't too inappropiate.

• Endurance: Perhaps split it in two abilities, each giving +1 HD.
• Rage: perhaps change the name to 'Balanced Tactics'or something more accurate?R
• Mighty Blow: to make it more useful at higher levels, might make so it either gives +4 damage or increases your strength damage bonus by something like 20% - whichever is higher.
• Crippling blow: might also reduce the enemy's attack(chance of hitting)perhaps.
• Whip Mastery: Nice idea . Here's my suggestion - all of these require a Whip(NOT flail)to be worn.
  • One extra blow AND + 2 to hit
  • (Optional)If we make a change which gives whips less of a Str bonus to damage than other weapons, having this ability would increase the Str bonus a bit - for example, rather than getting your bonus divided by 4, it would be divided by 2 or 3.
  • Can attack an enemy which is two or three squares away - one square of range more than Far reaching attack.
  • Can snatch items which are two or three squares away if they weight less than (strength/2)pounds.
• Lingering Daze: automatically seeems too much. Perhaps just heavily increase the fail chance.
• Scrounge Ammunition: Perhaps add a limitation so it doesn't work on some(very rare!)terrain types or dungeons - though in most other settings, like dungeons, swamps or wilderness, finding stones is really no problem.
• Sniper Shot: I'd make this Archery and not only Bow-related.
• Piercing Shot: 10% might be too little - perhaps 20%?
• Throwing mastery: ALWAYS return to inventory, even if not boomerangs? Umh, that might be too much - an idea could be a formula with the % chance being 20 + skill + dex stat - A low-level character with DEX 24 and skill 16 would get 50%, which seems more appropriate. Skill would either be Boomerang Mastery or 'Throwing'if we ever get a throwing skill - actually, there aren't real 'throwing'weapons in ToME as of now, at least from what I remember.
• Chi Strike: That's mighty indeed - I'd suggest just adding some skill-based elemental damage, for example 1d(skill/2)fire/cold/acid/lightning damage. Or perhaps pure mana damage, as it makes more sense for 'Chi'which is spiritual power.
• Wild Rage: Good idea, useful for those who really like bearform combat although the name could be changed to something more related to bears.
• Assassination: Again, 'automatically' seems too much. Also it shouldn't work on lifeless beings an undeads. However I like this idea of a one-hit one-kill ability for assassins.
• Blood Magic, Focus, Transfer Power: Very nice abilities, they make mages even more versatile.
• Various prayer abilities: Good thing, they help differentiate between the priests/followers of various Gods.

AerdanRunestar: I think a better idea than the current abilities is to borrow the D&D feats system, where every n levels a player may buy a feat, rather than paying out skill points for it. I'd also like to see some ideas from existing D&D feats make it into the ability system as well.

Zonk: I had thought about this also - a limited number of 'feats'rather than gaining them by spending skill points. This would allow use to make abilities somewhat more powerful(as the number of them you would get would be limited)and would also allow us to make feat 'categories'so, for example, we might give Fighter-type classes the choiche of 'bonus feats'. However I also think the current system is more flexible and versatile. Converting D&D feats, or just taking inspiration from them seems like a very good idea. I have some knowledge of it, so I might just help in doing that. Also, I added some new possible abilities - namely Armor Mastery, Shield Mastery, Thick-skinned and Fleet of foot.

BitsySpider: Added some "titles" that give an incentive for people to go Wizard-huntin'. Anyone know what the Blue Wizards had as their schtick? Radagast was Nature, Saruman Divination, Gandalf Fire, Sauron was "the Sorceror" and "the Necromancer" so his title is based on those, though I have a burning desire to include Udun as a requirement. I don't like the bonuses from the titles, but I like the idea that you can claim to be "Trogdor the White" or somesuch (maybe all allow a race change to "Istari" which has some nifty bonuses and abilities?)

AnonymousHero: Lots of great ideas here. I'm in agreement with the people arguing that these should be handled like 'feats', i.e. a fixed number of picks granted at certain levels (with available feats determined by class, possibly also restricted further by race).

JaekTheBarbarian: I like the idea of having more 'special' abilities for the characters. Using them as feats could be interesting, too, but would really just be equivalent to saying "You have 50 points that we've automatically spent on feats." It also doesn't allow balancing out of the abilities based on point value, since they suddenly all cost the same amount. One could acquire feat points in addition to skill points, though - the abilities could be separated from the skills. So you go back to 5 points per level for skills and get 1 or 2 points per level for feats. My problem with these two ideas is that they restrict character development too much - they force you to use abilities. The comparisons to D&D made me wonder what a GURPS-based roguelike would be like. :-D