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• New class idea: Believers

Believer

Believers are a special kind of warrior. Whereas a normal warrior, even an Unbeliever, will place his life in the hands of his or her equipment every day, to a Believer, the relationship between man and metal is much greater. A believer believes that every innanimate object has a spirit and soul of it's very own, and, with the proper help, can be forged as sharp as any steel.

A Believer's weapons and armor are not just reliable and powerful, they are his companions and family. Each of the myriad of items in the world has it's own history and story to tell, and a Believer strives to bring these stories out.

Transference

A Believer's special ability is called Transference. Transference is the act of breathing life into and sharing the experiences life offers with the Believer's items.

At it's most basic level, Transference allows a Believer to dedicate a small portion of his experiences into improving his weapons and armor. Initially, this allows a Believer to nominate an item as a item to receive transference -- in game, this is represented by the item gaining the special Ego Suffix (Learning). Items with the Learning suffix take 10% of any experience that the Believer gets, adding it to their own abilities -- they gain no other abilities or penalties.

Initially, this allows an item "free" enchantments. Whenever an item gains a certain percentage of the Believer's experience to next level, it randomly gains an enchantment as if a random Enchant Weapon or Enchant Armor scroll was used on it. The max enchantment is roughly similar to the same limits as reading the actual scrolls, although with a higher maximum. (+S@25?)

The item is otherwise unchanged -- it does not become "sentient" or "learning" on it's own -- the Believer's aura merely unlocks the powers of the item that are already there.

Once the Believer has gained sufficient knoweldge and strength, represented by level 20 in Transference, the Believer can begin to affect his equipment in more powerful ways. Existing Ego items can gain Pval instead of Enchantments, up to a limit of S@5. Items of a +10 enchantment or higher begin to gain a single Ego of their own, which can later gain Pval.

When a Believer increases to level 30 in Transference, his items break through to the next stage of growth -- Items can randomly gain a second Ego upon leveling up. All existing rules for items remain intact -- no Leather Armor (*Defender*), for example.

When a Believer increases to level 40 in Transference, his items begin to break through to the final stages of growth. Items with 2 Existing Egos can gain a third, or even a fourth, by Transmigrating into Artifacts. The item's true name is unveiled, and it's powers are unlocked. These items can continue to randomly gain abilities and powers as they further grow, growing as powerful as any other RandArt.

Finally, when a Believer becomes a Grandmaster of Transference, at level 50, his items reach the pinnicle of abilities. Legends in their own rights, a Level 50 Transference has several options at their disposal to help their newfound kin.

Breath of Life
A Grandmaster Believer can breath the breath of life into his items. This is not something to be taken lightly, as the item is immediately and irrevicably stripped of it's existing powers, the magic within being consumed in the item's grand awakening. However, the item immediately becomes a Sentient item, with all the benefits and penalties therein. Most importantly, this means that the item can now learn on it's own, without needing the player to "leak" experience to it. A Believer can still apply the (Learning) ego to a Sentient item as normal -- the resulting item grows as a normal Sentient item, only faster.

Meditation of Eru
A Grandmaster Believer can also choose to focus his own spirit inward, placing his considerable talents towards teaching a single item, rather than "leaking" his abilities towards another one. This is not to be undertaken lightly -- only one item can be taught in this way at a time, and all other items with the (Learning) ego lose the ego temporarily. While undergoing Meditiation, a Believer gains no experience at all -- all experience gained instead goes to the chosen item. In addition, the Believer immediately begins losing Experience, as if he had the "Drain Experience" flag on. However, the resulting item gains 100% of all experience gained normally and lost to this flag, allowing the Believer to increase the power of a single item extremely fast.

Summary:

Player can Transference S@10 items at a time (at max skill a player can give up 100% XP to enpower 10 items at a time). Items gain S@50 percent of the experience lost by a player (this means at Level 1, the item only gains 1% of the 10% of experience lost)

Chatter

I mentioned this idea in IRC a few days ago, just now saw GhostBuster's Weaponsmith idea was added to the Wiki. Maybe there's enough good ideas in both to make a class for TOME3? - KiTA

Zonk: That's a refreshing idea - though you might look for a different name, when I first read of it I thought of a a warrior-priest cross. Another nice idea: add the ability to 'detect metals'at a medium-high level of experience, and also make already 'sentient'artifacts gain experience a bit faster based on your transfrence skill(perhaps as a +(Skill/2) bonus)

• Orvin: Regarding the ability to detect metals, see IdeaArchive/Items/New Artifact: The Dwarven Pick of Thrain.

ElvishPillager: meh, I've never much liked alchemist/weaponsmith/whatever "make your own awesome items!" classes, because it kind of kills the fun of finding awesome items in their own right.

NeilStevens: That's why we have modules.