ToME WikiI discovered than symbiosis is too powerful skill for any class. If you get if from lost sword quest and reach level 40, you cam use greater quylthulg powers to summon dragons, which summon even more dragons etc. For me it's almost destroyed all game.
I see some possible solutions:
- Make symbiont skills for non-symbiont classes available on skill level = 2*(related skill level for Symbionts).
- Add mana upkeep for summoned monsters by slowing down mana regeneration or even making it negative.
- Disabling summoning ability for summoned monsters.
NeilStevens: We're not tying things to class, sorry.
TheFalcon: I don't mean to be antagonistic, but: why not? Isn't that rather the point in having classes and races: They put people on a different starting position. Otherwise, why have them at all?
NeilStevens: Different starting position, yes, but changing how a skill works per-class is an entirely different matter. Skills should not know or care what class you are. Class just determines what equipment, stat bonuses, and skill multipliers you start with. What happens after that is determined by the player's choices. Class becomes irrelevant.
JasonStitt: If classes become irrelevant that quickly, though, why have them? The strength of "pure" class-based systems is unmistakable distinction or "identity" for the classes (the Diablo II approach), and the strength of "pure" skill-based systems is unrivaled flexibility (the Fallout approach). ToME doesn't have really distinct classes and also doesn't give you the flexibility to make any character type you want, sans Fumblefingers, who is highly unreliable. Not meant as a dig, just an honest critique.
NeilStevens: Why have classes if they become irrelevant? The answer is to give the game a faster start. Compare ToME classes with Sangband Oaths. A big difference between the games is that ToME lets you immediately guide your character in a certian direction (and even more so when we get front-loaded skill points, so that you can raise some skills right at the start of the game, as in Steamband), while Sangband has a slower start.
JasonStitt: Good point. Picking individual skills might take more time than just picking a class. Then again, I spend an awful lot of time poring over the class, race and god descriptions looking over how I can get the set of skills I want together, and sometimes come up with no answer (except FF). I've not tried Sangband, but I probably should.
RavenRed: Yes and no. I like the hybridised nature of ToME. Identity is INFLUENCED by skill allocation, which is then influenced in its own turn by your starting class. For example, I've played a few Haftedmasters recently, one woshipping Tulkas and pumping Stunning Blows and another Worshipping Eru and pumping Magic Device and Prayer. The identity and style of each of them varies substantially. These started from the same point with the same basic skill allocation, but were able to move in vastly different directions. I agree to an extent that FF is a little bit of a kludgy approach to diversifying your skills, but at the same time, it allows you to extend your gameplay style considerably in to distinctly non-prescribed areas. For mine, a no-class system is inappropriate for the fantasy setting (please disagree if you feel the need) wheras a strictly enforced class style somewhat defeats the purpose of the skill system.
JasonStitt: ToME aside for a moment, I would hesitate to make such a general statement. Fantasy is a broad genre that should not be limited by D&D, without which the class system might not be nearly as popular a mechanic as it is today (though I'm sure it would still be around). Getting back to ToME, I can see your point about diversity through god and ability choices, among other things. It still seems to me like this is a system with a large number of classes that have small differences between them. Taking things to a hypothetical extreme, the more classes you have with different allocations of the same skills, the closer you are to a real skill-based system... ToME isn't there, but it does have a lot of different takes on the same skills, and combined with what people do with FF it's almost a classless system in disguise, trying to be class-based.
On the idea: I agree that there are balance issues that result from having such things available, but (I quote) "ToME is 'not' balanced". 
Ultimately, however, the choice as to use these things rests with the player. If you find that such a combination spoils the game for you, don't use it.
DragonRU: Of course, it's not nessesary to have all classes balanced. But, at least, each class should have it's specific strategy. For example sorcerer should act as sorcerer, not like symbiont. But when my sorcerer comes to Mt. Doom, and summoned few dragons - just to simplify battle a bit - in few turns I got LOTS of dragons around me. I had to press -more- hundreds times just to make one move. I don't think it was improved gameplay.
Others however, may find that they need to go down that route for a viable character...
RavenRed: I agree with almost everyone here. A simpler solution is to remove Symbiosis from Lost Sword Quest gainable skills. (personally, I'd also remove Mindcraft as well). The class/skill split, for mine, is irrevocable. If classes aren't playable without hightly out-of-theme skills, then maybe the classes need to be tweaked a bit more. (Having said that, I love option 3. Summoning is one thing, chain-summoning quite another. Apply an ego-type stripping all the summoning spells to all summoned monsters?)
NeilStevens: Since when is it that easy to get a Greater Quylthulg, which is what you really need to summon well, though?
RavenRed: You're a man of high standards, Neil. 
Many people get by on less, you know. Yeah, I MAY have been trying to add my own bugbear of chain-summoning to the issue at hand. Besides, Gnome mages aren't that hard to come by with a normal Q, are they?
NeilStevens: Sure, you can summon with a regular Q or a Gnome Mage or whatever, but that's not really the game-changing summoning. You need to Summon Greater Things in order to get a lot, and to get a lot of summoner pets. I'm pretty sure it is the "chain summoning" that the original poster was complaining about, too. He's the one who first mentioned Greater Quylthulgs after all.
TheFalcon: Can you not get a Greater Q from a simple scroll of summon never moving pet read at depth?
NeilStevens: If you can get to that depth.
TobiasParker: Set tactics to coward, thunderlord to Angband 80 or whatever, read never moving pet scroll, read recall scroll, hope nothing breathes on you...and stair scum. All you need is 10000 gold which is conceieveably a Barrow Downs 1 princess quest reward.
JasonStitt: Angband blocks the thunderlord teleport, and you can't access most deep dungeons as a level 1 character. At minimum level 20, you can get into the sacred land of mountains. Go down to the bottom (level 70), hope there's nothing around, and bring a bunch of scrolls. You can get a greater draconic/demonic quylthulg here. I just did. Then you just make it a companion, recall the heck out of there, and go play with it in the wilderness a bit until you get chain-summoning dragons/demons. Tons of fun. I will try shallower dungeons next and see if this is possible at a lower character level.
TobiasParker: I was being hypothetical, but yea. You should see what dungeons you can teleport into at Clevel 6 (the average after the thieves quest, or if your a high exp penalty race/class after i few levels of the BD. And what summons you can get at those dungeons.
JasonStitt: At level 10 you can go to Cirith Ungol, the illusory castle or the Helcaraxe, but none is deep enough, it seems. So far, it looks like the earliest greater quylthulgs come at character level 15, in Mordor, dungeon level 66. And it's a bit more complicated than I thought, since the Qs' summons are based on dungeon level as well. So no recalling to the surface and getting them to summon against ants -- they'll just summon ancient dragons, not great wyrms of power.
Still, this is a viable, if risky, technique and is available at a relatively low level. One dragonfly can get you up to level 12-15 or so depending on your XP penalty, after all, and you can then do some princess quests for money (at least 20-30K, since you need a lot of summon scrolls). If you stick around in Mordor with a greater draconic Q companion, you won't be level 15 for very long... of course, you might also die.
Note that Mordor seems to have some disconnected-stairs issues, so stair-scumming may not be workable. You've got one shot. However, if you aren't instakilled and get any sort of decent summon (doesn't have to be a Q, could be a druj) you can survive fine and maybe gain some levels. Even a non-greater draconic, demonic or rotting Q, or a druj, can kill enough stuff to get you to level 20, at which point you can turn around and go to SLoM if you want. In fact, this is probably better, since greater Qs are possible in Mordor but not really likely (I got kind of lucky). Going to SLoM 69 instead of 70 could be advisable, come to think of it.
NeilStevens: Yeah, to teleport will cost you 10000 gold. So it's still not a simple thing that any player to do right away. It takes some practice and skill at the game. And it shouldn't be surprising that people more skilled at the game have an easier time than people without.
TobiasParker: I have never played a symbiant so i don't really know the powers of the various Qulythugs since if they don't die before they summon on me i usually run away, but on my latest Learning Comp character, Elorm, i just got Sybiosis from FF, teleported to Mordor at level 16 and got a Rottting Qulythug. Now it may not be greater but then again i only read one scroll since i like this character alot and didn't want to take too much of a chance. I am very curious to see how this affects my game especially since i will be using the exact same skill plan as my other learning comp character.