ToME Wikishoob: So I was thinking about the alchemist and the runecrafters. Albiet there is a few disputes on the alchemist, and I thought wtf does the alchemist come into the picture anyways. ALL the atifacts were made with runes glittering on them, so how come the runecrafters cant inscribe runes on them, so I would think that they should be able to add runes to items at later levels, I am thinking lvl 30, this could be a skill or no. Items that can be inscribed with runes would be randarts, ego, and normal items. The amounts of runes could depend on the bulk of the item (if implemented, or the weight if not) and the level of the runecrafting spell (as you can inscribe smaller runes with higher runecrafting). Here are some of my ideas:
- Fire - add a power from the fire realm
- cold - add a power from the cold realm
- lightning - add a power from the lightning realm
- acid - add a power from the acid realm
- mind - add a power from the mind realm
- holding - add a random sustain or hold life
- element - add a random power from one of the elemental realms
- chaos - add a power from the chaos realm OR a random realm OR change the item
- protection - add to AC OR add a power from the shield realm
- life - same as holding as well as life and greater life
- knowledge - need several to add a power from a random realm
- gravity - critical strike and to damage or add weight or slaying
- undeath - add vampiric brand, invisible, wraithform, hold life, curse, recurse, heavy curse, ancient curse or morgothian curse
also maybe adding a place to forge the runes onto the item, such as a forge in every town, but you have to either pay or do a quest to gain access to it.
Sirrocco: Perhaps it could be one of the Alternate House Uses. (Once you have a house in a certain town, you perform a quest of some sort. You lose the house permanently, but gain some sort of Useful Thing in exchange.) Actually, it could be a decent way of balancing the alchemist to a degree. Leave alchemy in charge of potion/scroll/wand/staff/rod, give alchemists a nice high magic object skill to play with, offer a high-alchemy ability that renders wands and staves immune to charge draining, and give some way to efficiently tote around large numbers of essences. Alchemists aren't nearly as potent in melee combat, but they turn into a class that uses magic items as primary damage-dealing. Give them a few spell schools at decent levels to round them out, and I think they could be very interesting. On the other side, make equipment a rune thing. Have a runesmithing skill that covers forging runes into things to create magical objects, perhaps including the high-end Artifact Creation power. Without the ability to drain forgeparts out of every potion in the shop, they have to be a lot more judicious with their item creation. The only way to get more runes is to hunt the depths for them. On the other side, no more searching for bizarre reagants for your artifacts - each artifact power has a cost payable in runes.