Verrry long post ahead. It all kind of ties together so reading only one portion will probably throw you off.

I've been thinking about the weaknesses of our dances for awhile and put together a new system. Major flaw to me is... there's no seamless transition when using our dances. Swan, bear, or wolverine dance for example are all not bad dances at all. The problem is that I would rather be dancing Dragon than to use any of those.

My system tries to give these non-dragon dances more perks to make us WANT to use them more, and give us an easier way to do it. It also tries to give us a flexible way to use them while keeping them very simplistic for those of us who don't want any huge changes to our precious basic dance system. Think of it as an addition. I also tried to make it unique to us and not just a copy of Zeyurn's awesome khri system. It also tries to give us more goals to reach. It doesn't allow us to pick apart the buffs we want from each dance since that kind of destroys the essence and purpose of the dance itself.

I would like to see greater achievements for dances when a Barbarian meets a requirement for concentration/stats. I want to see some utility functions that either help us in combat or help us use our own abilities better. Call it ‘Mastering Dances’.

Before I throw out some ideas for mastering each individual dance, I want to throw out some ideas for mastering dances as a whole (mastering the technique of dancing, not just each one). One major achievement for 'mastering dances' is to see the IF cost for initiating dances drastically reduced. Seamless transition is the key. Since dances are supposedly 'fluid' for Barbarians (mind + body, blah blah), a 'mastered dancer' should be allowed to transition from one dance to another without killing inner fire. Certain dances would still drain inner fire more than others of course. Duration would not be changed.

Also, I would love to be able to make the transition into another dance (perhaps another achievement) without having to type dance stop. Roundtime when transitioning between dances is a must. Here some examples:

1. Mastered Swan dance - grants a temporary anti-stun function (or maintain good balance through a stun) + bigger balance increase

Requirements: At least 45th circle, 30 discipline, and 35 whatever else, heh.

2. Mastered Cobra dance - Slightly increased bonus to melee weapon. Grants a large bonus to the Charge maneuver with lowered RT (striking snake, baby).

Requirements: At least 50th circle and minimum of 40 agility (that's right, set them goal poles high)

3. Mastered Badger dance - Stamina boost (I'd say armor but we're not magical, heh) as well as a reduction in opponents' aim/targetting time. Meaning, full aim is reduced in half. Partial aim is reduced in half, etc...

Requirements: 56th circle + 35 discipline + 35 reflex

4. Mastered Eagle dance - Slight reduction in aim time + larger boost to perception skill.

Requirements: At least 65th circle + 30 wisdom

5. Mastered Bear dance - Increased chance for knockdown effect with melee weapons + greater chance for stun.

Requirements: At least 77th circle + 40 strength

6. Mastered Wolverine dance - Lowers opponents reflex + agility for each hit that lands (with a cap in place of course. I see it being useful when you're only landing light hits on people and need more oomph, especially if damage is re-scaled) as well as a very slight bonus to strength, stamina, agility, reflex (mini-dragon).

Requirements: At least 90th circle + 215 concentration

7. Mastered Panther dance - Bigger boost to stealths + night-time bonus, as well as an increased damage bonus to an ambush attack.

Requirements: At least 110th circle + 50 agility and Reflex

8. Final Dragon - (hard to add more stuff to an already existing Dragon, heh) But I'll say... umm... greater chance to destroy body parts when landing hits. Better War stomp capabilites (i.e no cost to inner fire when using War stomp, knock out people in hiding with War Stomp)??? as well as more Whirlwind capabilities. Hard to come up with much more since Dragon is great as is, and I understand most would probably just want an upgrade to those respective abilities instead of needing Dragon's final form.

Requirements: At least 135th circle.

I thought of these while keeping in mind game balance. If anyone feels like my suggestions are somehow OP, then feel free to comment (constructively, hopefully). I don't think anything should be OP or exceed caps, and a lot of our abilities do hit the caps but lack variety and utility function. I believe activating a mastered form of a dance should ONLY give a temporary boost. Example:

>>dance eagle advanced

Your movements feel completely unhindered.

You active the mastered form of the Eagle.

You push out your chest as you feel your eyes taking on a new and distant focus. The majesty of an Eagle on the wing suffuses your body with clarity.
Roundtime: 8 seconds.

This would activate the normal Eagle dance ability except with the bigger perception boost and reduction in aim time (i.e if it takes 12 full seconds to get full aim, it would now only take 9-10 seconds for full aim). Now, after only ONE minute, the advanced form of Eagle would drop, and the Barbarian is left with only the normal Eagle dance. Perhaps activating mastered forms of dances would give an additional 3 sec RT.

>>You feel the mastered technique of the Eagle fade away from your core.

What I envisioned Barbarians doing is transitioning from one dance to the next based on how combat presents itself. For example, if you expect someone to try to stun you, you might Dance Swan Advanced, and after their attempt, switch over to Dance Panther Advanced to close in on melee in hiding and get off an attack. Seamless transition according to the battle at hand.

Now, I would imagine there may be some sort of downtime between using the mastered forms of various dances. Perhaps whenever the ability to transition from dance to dance with a reduction of the cost to inner fire is gained (40th, 50th, 60th, circle, or whenever else), it won't apply to transitioning from Mastered forms of dances to other Mastered forms. Maybe using Mastered forms of dances would drain inner fire faster, and can only be activated once. So for example, you won't be able to activate the mastered form of Cobra, switch to badger, then activate the mastered form of cobra again.

Initially I thought that all of this would be a bit much... but hell, we're Barbarians. All we have is combat. Every other guild has great combat related stuff alongside lore + locate abilities and tons more. We're killing machines and we should be good at determining the best way to do it in any given situation. There are a lot of little details that I didn't hash out such as how we'd learn these mastered forms and if it'd involve quests. The requirements for each were kind of thrown together since they aren't exactly the focus of my post, so they may be a little wacky.

Any thoughts on this from other players and GMs (you guys too, since it'd be great for us to know how feasible something like this would be)? Feel free and comment, question, and criticize.

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Vinjince

I like the overall idea of this, though I question whether some of the "advanced" forms would be a bit too powerful.

The transitioning stuff is gold, and I really do like the idea of "levels of mastery." Personally, I really would like to see the dances split up into smaller pieces, but I may be a minority in that.

I envision something like the khri system, but smaller. Perhaps a system of meditations that call on individual aspects of our current dances; allow us to tack X number of meditations on top of our dances after achieving X level of dance mastery (stat based). These meditations could refocus certain aspects of our dances (bigger perception boost, less ranged boost for eagle) or just add additional boosts/abilities on top of our dances (small perception boosting meditation on top of badger dance).

Aurdun, I know everything is being reworked and discussed regarding the future of Barbarian abilities, but I was curious as to what ideas you currently envision, that way we can narrow down our ideas to fit in with your general "Barbarian Abilities Picture."

Apologies for the incessant double posting...

>>That said, I still think that the khri-style system is better in the long run.

I have to agree. Why make it more complicated than it has to be? There's a great NMU system already out there.

Having experienced the new khri system firsthand when it was released, I can honestly say that there's no reason not to look to that for inspiration if you want a solid, versatile system. It has a great deal more depth than the dances we know and love/hate, yet at the same time it's remarkably easy to use.

I'm more of a berserk fan myself, but if dances are to change I'd have to support a khri-like system over anything else I can think of.

Also, Z rocks.

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The pulzone lands a powerful strike that pokes the steel-tipped pulzone into the gryphon's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).
The steel-tipped pulzone lodges itself shallowly into the forest gryphon!

>Aurdun, I know everything is being reworked and discussed regarding the future of Barbarian abilities, but I was curious as to what ideas you currently envision, that way we can narrow down our ideas to fit in with your general "Barbarian Abilities Picture."

I'm going to try and formulate a reply to this as soon as I can. The problem is that right now, I'm a little fluid in my thinking. That's why I want reactions and ideas from you guys - it helps me make up my own mind because. I can't give a specific answer until after we decide the direction we're going, but I can give a current 'vision' of things.

That will have to wait until this evening or tomorrow, though.


~GM Aurdun
Barbarians' Guild Advocate
Gor'Tog Co-Champion
History Guru

"Don't use logic on scientists. That's just mean." ~ GM Zeyurn

>I'm going to try and formulate a reply to this as soon as I can. The problem is that right now, I'm a little fluid in my thinking. That's why I want reactions and ideas from you guys - it helps me make up my own mind because.

Fully understood. That's why I'd like to see your current vision - so we can formulate our ideas to fit in with it.

Thanks for the reply. Definitely looking forward to reading your thoughts.

>>Can someone give me a glimpse of what the awesome khri system entails? It's stacking correct? I never really heard details about it but just that alot of people like it.

http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Khri

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-TG, TG, & GL, et al.

<<2) You can stack as many of these boosts as you want, provided you have the concentration (IF?) to do so.

More than one Khri active at a time results in a multiplier to the cost of each up to a cap of 7 active at once with a modifier of 2.8 (?)

Also, there are a handful of 'instant' Khri that have a one time cost and aren't maintained.

-Evran

Crackling with unspent rage since 386AV.

Thanks guys, that does sound like a very nifty system.


Vote DR as TOP MUD: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-cemm.html

Having little higher level practical experience, I do not feel qualified to make detailed comments or suggestions. However, I read everything I can find on the guild. ased on what little experience I do have and my booksmarts, I like the concept of Dance Mastery levels and earning new perks rather than just getting more powerful (as someone else already said).

>>I would honestly just eliminate the idea of dances and replace them all with meditations, as that's sort of what we're doing the entire time we're "dancing".

I agree with this. My Barbarian in Plat actually calls them Forms when he can and Dance Forms if someone presses the point.

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~Talo, Prydaen Barbarian~

While I'm all for the idea of using the khri mechanics, I VERY much want to keep the feel of our dances.

From what I've seen of the khri messaging, it's mostly "mind over matter" type things.

For us, I have always liked the fact that our dances have been mind AND body over everything. Body movements trigger a mental state which affects our bodies. I feel this is inherently part of our guild, the fact we combine both mind and body into a better fighting force than either alone.

I'd also like to add in perhaps a spiritual component. Many "barbaric" societies have a belief that all things have spirits. While not exactly true in DR, I think it would be nice to use some of these ideas.

Skim over http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Post:Death_and_the_Soul_-_5/11/2009_-_1:39:41

If we wanted to stretch in that direction, it does outline that the body/mind and the spirit influence each other. A case could be made that meditations or dances could have an effect on our spirit which in turn affects our bodies. It could also create some fun ways to gain our dances/meditations rather than just "find teacher, watch teacher dance." Go kill a bear/go watch a bear/go let a bear kill you and then come speak with the dance teacher.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but it's something that might be fun to look into. Spirit working doesn't HAVE to be magical, especially if it's confined to your own.

It might even give a good explanation of what Inner Fire is: it's part of the pattern of our souls.

I'm just spewing ideas.

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Magic's Death Caraamon Makdasi,
Gor'Tog Barbarian Extrordi...Well somewhat average
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html

>If we changed the design of dances towards something resembling Khri, it wouldn't mean that everything would BECOME khri down to the messaging. Just that we'd be using the same concept in how we set them up.

:P

I know that. It was just a handy intro into my own ideas. A good segway is always a plus.

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Magic's Death Caraamon Makdasi,
Gor'Tog Barbarian Extrordi...Well somewhat average
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html

My suggestion for a New Dance System would be to leave all of the current dances (other than Dragon. I think Dragon should be higher level.) exactly how they are, and add a lot of new dances (like level 35 Turtle dance (shield/defense)).

Add a Form System where Forms work like Dances, but Forms would be custom and composed of "Techniques" learned from picking up dances.

Example:

- Level 10 Swan Dance you learn Minor Balance Technique
- Level 14 Cobra Dance you learn Minor Offensive Tehnique
- Level 18 Badger Dance you learn Minor Defensive Technique
- Level 26 Bear Dance you learn Minor Stamina
- Level 30 Wolverine Dance you learn Major Balance
- Level 35 Turtle Dance you learn Minor Shield
- Level 40 Panther Dance you learn Minor Stealth, Minor Reflex, Minor Agility
...
- Level 80 Armadillo Dance you learn Major Shield

Form 1 has 2 Minor Technique Slots. Barbarian would choose two Minor Techniques that would be active while the Barbarian has Form 1 active.

Form 2 has 2 Minor Technique Slots and a Major Technique Slot.

Form 3... etc.

Each Form could also have base boosts that exist for that form no matter what techniques you choose to plug into the form.

Gain a new Form every ~20 circles. Goal would be to have a Form gained at level X be as powerful as the Dance gained around level X in terms of the number of skills/stats boosted.

~Nitish

<<It bothers me that every Barbarian ability we get is basically just a bigger and meaner self buff. I've got nothing against skill/stat buffs, but it seems rather shallow to me; I don't see why certain things like whirlwind are considered standard skill abilities but double loading is connected to Eagle for example. I'd like to see more things like that connected to dances.>>

I absolutely agree. I also feel that it isn't a Barbarian related issue if you look at the bigger picture. Magic using guilds experience the same issue, but I would still consider it an issue where you outgrow an ability or spell.

This is what I was trying to bring up during the discussion with choosing your abilities (flexible system of choice and recognition among the guild - i.e.: circle requirements). Will there be an opportunity to forget an ability that your Barbarian masters in order to utilize another ability? I can definitely see that being an issue for lower circle Barbarians as they progress and evolve their hunting style.

- Simon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soF3t7cFPoc