Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Brainstorming Topic!

[Magic Fanatic]

Well, just because I feel like introducing possible basic-type characters...

Jeff - 1.5

Pros:  Damage.  Parasitic Healing.  Shield Killing.  Free MT damage later.
Cons:  Speed.  Durability (thank you, Ness).  Speed.  Earlygame options.  Speed.  Vulnerable to status.  Best damage is based on speed.

...Maybe allow him the Rabbit's Foot at some point?



Blackpearl - 3.5 (Or much, MUCH higher.)

Pros:  A godsend for limit bar fighters.  Above-average durability.
Cons:  Questionable legality of movement.  Own damage is only okay.

[Clear Tranquil]

What game/s are those characters from?

**

Neph =-) -

Status Symbol Law - Team is fully status, debuff and ID immune, but has all their total statistics reduced by 10%.

Do buffs still work?

[Magic Fanatic]

What game/s are those characters from?

**

Neph =-) -

Status Symbol Law - Team is fully status, debuff and ID immune, but has all their total statistics reduced by 10%.

Do buffs still work?

Jeff is from Earthbound, while Lady Blackpearl is from Legend of Mana.

Also, while you're at it for answering things, does the "fully status" immune include positive status, like Protect and whatnot?

[Nephrite]

Do buffs still work?

Yes, they do. Positive status will still work.

[Mad Fnorder]

Blackpearl... just no. Cute Idea, but Blackpearl+Cloud=game over as Cloud takes infinite limit turns, which give him an automatic ATB turn every time his meter fills, which is constantly.

[Magic Fanatic]

If I remember correctly, that only works if Blackpearl moves out of range, then back into range of the character she wants to activate the synchro ability with, so you could just see it as Cloud getting turns right after Blackpearl.  Still way overpowered, but less so.

Of course, I could easily be wrong, and Blackpearl as a limit ally is still way overpowered.

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks Neph!

Solidified up my team choice and seal stone in the other thread =-) I went with the Status Symbol Law 

*looks up*

So basically Cloud gets a instant/near instant turn every time his limit bar fills up?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Not if it's already full. That only happens on the turn the gauge gets filled.

[Taishyr]

Snow's right, but it doesn't take much distance or time for Blackpearl to move back quickly, out of reach, and then move back in and trigger a refill for Cloud. I'd personally call it less than half a turn, which means Cloud's still getting really fast turns... about 1/2rd of the time? (Blackpearl moves in->Limit->Limit used as Blackpearl moves out of range, limit bar is still full as Blackpearl breaks Synchro effect->Limit used again, Blackpearl moves back in and grants another immediate one).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Snow's right, but it doesn't take much distance or time for Blackpearl to move back quickly, out of reach, and then move back in and trigger a refill for Cloud. I'd personally call it less than half a turn, which means Cloud's still getting really fast turns... about 1/2rd of the time? (Blackpearl moves in->Limit->Limit used as Blackpearl moves out of range, limit bar is still full as Blackpearl breaks Synchro effect->Limit used again, Blackpearl moves back in and grants another immediate one).

I wasn't debating that, no. Regardless, adding Blackpearl into the list of dungeon picks is basically the interp trainwreck to mother all interp trainwrecks waiting to happen (and you nicely highlighted yet another reason why this could happen. LoM in the Dungeon = fuck you world), because that being possibly insanely broken in a dungeon setting wasn't enough, apparently.

[Taishyr]

Yeah. LoM is something I can't really recommend in any good conscience. There's amusing Synchro effects, but those might be best as like Sealstones or something? (give two people a shared bonus, but the cost is any ST attack on one hits the other as well?)

[SnowFire]

Two sealstone ideas, mostly that would be useful for blitz type teams.  Most of the teams that have gotten very far in the dungeon haven't really been blitzers (with the notable exception of that Orlandu / Nel team...  Unoriginal's I think?), so figure they could use some options.

Death - The Reaper trails closely behind one of your characters.  They automatically resist the first attempt to status them with Instant Death in a battle...  but if they do die for any reason, they can't be revived for the duration of the floor.  If they cost .5-1.5 points, they cost .5 points less to buy; more, and they cost 1 point less to buy.

Pros: If you don't plan on them dying anyway, free points!

Cons: An extra .5 -1 points probably isn't worth taking such a risk?  Even with protection against that first ID attempt, you might want to get someone ID immune anyway so that an ID spammer in battle 2 doesn't ruin their day.

Interpretation notes: I'd say that it should resist the first *successful* attempt to ID them, so an attack with a 5% chance of ID attached only wastes their ID-protection 5% of the time.  The ID protection is there at all to reduce swinginess and make things like a speedy IDer not completely devastating....  and it's only one-time so that if you don't take care of the problem quickly, you still pay the price.

Also, if you stick this Sealstone on Aeris, Lyn, or Eliwood, you win 5 Internets.

Tension - The dungeon is going to explode!  Why are its defenders hanging around to fight you rather than running for their lives?  Who knows!  Point is, if you can't beat all 5 battles in 12 rounds or less, YOU LOSE.  Your team is properly inspired by the necessity of a swift escape, and their speed increases by a flat 10% (so 80% average speed becomes 90%, not 88%).

Pros: Speed boosting in the dungeon is busted in half.  Especially useful for those averagish and slightly below average speed characters with great abilities like Millenia. 

Cons: Any kind of "staller" match in which you'd be tempted to rely on running them out of MP or waiting for a critical becomes immensely problematic.  Statusing the last enemy and reviving/healing the team for the next battle takes precious turns.

Interpretation note: It's "rounds" not "turns," so someone like Orlandu would likely take many turns in 3 normal rounds.  The assumption is that three rounds are enough for a slowish turn-based character to take three turns.  I'd also recommend that the terms of the Sealstone change on floor 7 and beyond, as that's where there start being fights like "Jade, Luca, Indalecio" where even a well-set up blitz team would have trouble taking them down too fast.  (Maybe 15 rounds there?)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Both of those sound uh nightmarish and I don't think there's a team that'd sanely pick them at all. The Tension sealstone sounds particularly problematic, because they're going to autolose to the first competent stalling fight that'll come up (and oh it will).

[Glen Veil]

On the topic of someone who can help limit teams Tim would probably make a decent choice, FP shift could probably be interpreted as adding 1/4th to the rest of the teams limit bars if they have one, and would be balanced by Tims terrible speed and durability.

Also if anyone saw the post I deleted, I apologize.  Apparrently my immature twat of a step brother decided it would be funny to change my post while I had to go do a chore briefly.

[Nephrite]

I think a slightly less headache-y version of the Tension stone might be that the team has an unhealable 20%mHP poison inflicted on them but has something like 50% higher stats. So, effectively, you have 5 rounds per battle to win, but I can add in that it can be healed at the start of each fight.

[dude789]

 Here's a couple of sealstone ideas I had.

Cursed Shield/Paladin Shield Sealstone
The wearer is inflicted with silence, blind, poison, confused and will die after taking three turns. The statuses can be healed, but they will be reapplied at the start of the next battle. Additionally, the wearer takes a 10% penalty to all stats and is weak to all elements. However, if the wearer makes it to floor 7 the sealstone transforms into the paladin shield which raises both defenses by 30%, provides 50% evasion to all non-ITE attacks and the user becomes immune to all elements. This sealstone is permanent and cannot be changed from person to person.

Reverse Sealstone
Similar to the old reversal of fortune floor, all attacks the wearer uses has a reverse effect. Healing now does damage, damage heals, and ID is Revival. This applies to both the character's actions and attacks that target the character. However the wearer's speed is reduced by a third, and they have a permanent non-curable 15 mHP% poison effect. (These extra effects were added so speedy full healers like Toadstool can't break the dungeon and they can't solo enemies who have no way to damage them.)

Also, I thought of a couple more characters from games that aren't really represented in the dungeon.

Lucas (Mother 3)-3.0
Pros: Really, really nice skill set. Consistently good damage, MT revival, damage reflecting shields and buffs make him a great team player. Solid durability doesn't hurt either.
Cons: Slow, all of the really good spells are floor 5 or 6, resources can be an issue if he has to use his big damage repeatedly.

Elincia (Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn)-2.0
Pros:  Starts off strong.  Staves help give her some utility. Becomes brutal when buffed.
Cons: Frail. Will completely fall apart to arrows. Without someone to help her she doesn’t have much going for her.

[Magic Fanatic]

Hmm...  If I may create a few new Sealstones, then...

Bud Spirit Synchro - Equip on a character that can use swords.  During their turn, they may "Synchro" with another character, increasing the synchro'd character's status defense by 25%.  If one character during this Synchro would be damaged, both the Spirit user and the character they are Synchro'd with take damage (this bypasses any effect that would force targetting to a single character).  If the equipped character dies, then the effect is canceled.

Elazul Spirit Synchro - Equip on a character that can use swords.  During their turn, they may "Synchro" with another character, increasing the rate of limit gain of the synchro'd character (not self) per time it is increased by 50%.  If one character during this Synchro would be damaged, both the Spirit user and the character they are Synchro'd with take damage (this bypasses any effect that would force targetting to a single character).  If the equipped character dies, then the effect is canceled.

Elle Spirit Synchro - Equip on any character.  During their turn, they may "Synchro" with another character, decreasing the damage the synchro'd character takes from elemental attacks by 25%.  If one character during this Synchro would be damaged, both the Spirit user and the character they are Synchro'd with take damage (this bypasses any effect that would force targetting to a single character).  If the equipped character dies, then the effect is canceled.

Escad Spirit Synchro - Equip on a character that can use swords.  During their turn, they may "Synchro" with another character, changing the defense check of the synchro'd character's physical attack to MDEF.  If one character during this Synchro would be damaged, both the Spirit user and the character they are Synchro'd with take damage (this bypasses any effect that would force targetting to a single character).  If the equipped character dies, then the effect is canceled.

Lisa Spirit Synchro - Equip on a character that can use staves.  During their turn, they may "Synchro" with another character, increasing the Synchro'd character's MDEF by 25%.  If one character during this Synchro would be damaged, both the Spirit user and the character they are Synchro'd with take damage (this bypasses any effect that would force targetting to a single character).  If the equipped character dies, then the effect is canceled.


The rest...  Either I don't have data on, or are incredibly useless in the dungeon, or WAY too overpowered.

Also, for character suggestion of the day...


Shania - 3.5 (SH3)

Pros:  Lots of options!  Damage!  Possible build-up of double-actions/chained turns!  Wins resource wars!  Gets the ultimate buff on Floor 6 or 7!
Cons:  Whatever Yuri has to deal with, without some of his more broken options.  Always Darkness-elemental.  Johnny makes her envious on damage on floor 7.  No healing until at least floor 3 or 4.

[SnowFire]

Jo'ou: The Death sealstone is kinda bad, yes, but is has uses?  A 4-person team with no Sealstone can toss in a Death'd DW1 Hero or the like for free, for example.  A hardcore enough rushing team can stick Death on a tankier member at a 2.0-2.5ish cost and just bet on them not dying, or having alternate options if they do (Ephraim, FE?).  Problem is, the Death Sealstone can't be too good, because it's annoying if people stick it on the lynchpin of the team and bet around them never dying - there ends up being potentially huge respect splits where the entire floor revolves around whether battle 3 can muster enough damage to kill Death'd Virginia or whatever.

As for Tension, well, it could be more rounds - say 15 outright, and more later?  You're correct that not being able to beat stallers quickly turns into an autolose... which is why Tension teams need a plan to beat up stallers.  That's the price and all for a speed boost - which the Dungeon hugely rewards.  Edgar?  Above-average speed now.  Eiko?  Faster than Garnet now with a mostly better skillset.  Billy?  Also above average speed.  A whole ton of average speedish characters with broken abilities from Yuri to Purim to Bartz?  Now win most speed-offs.  I can easily see a team built around Tension ruthlessly knocking most battles over.

Nephrite: A 50% boost?  Yikes.  And I assume that'd include speed too?  Presumably all the team would need are two good MT damage dealers and they should flatten every floor at some absurdly early initiative and never take the poison damage.  If the 50% didn't include speed, then pick two fast MT damage dealers like Magus & Deis.

[Nephrite]

50% was just a suggestion! I'd obviously consider the balance before actually implementing it.

I really like the Reverse stone.. I'd probably say "The damage done from healing can never kill a target" to prevent bad things from happening on that and just say that if that person is the only one left you auto-lose.

I will definitely be re-adding Shania, she was in a long time ago and I dumped her. Lucas seems interesting... Elincia too, although there may be some interpretation issues with her but really no more than anyone else like Orlandu or whatever, so yeah.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Jo'ou: The Death sealstone is kinda bad, yes, but is has uses?  A 4-person team with no Sealstone can toss in a Death'd DW1 Hero or the like for free, for example.

The main problem with the Death Sealstone is that it's too big a price for not enough of a reward. To an even bigger extent, that applies to the Tension Sealstone (but I'll get to it later, its more prominent issues are another bag of beans). Immuning the first successful attempt in a fight to be ID'd and not the future ones? For the price of being entirely unrevivable? Yeah, the risk/reward ratio won't work. When you're dealing with relative permadeath, a reward so subtle just won't do, particularly because killing that character in any other way triggers the negative effect. It doesn't pan out.

As for Tension, well, it could be more rounds - say 15 outright, and more later?  You're correct that not being able to beat stallers quickly turns into an autolose... which is why Tension teams need a plan to beat up stallers.  That's the price and all for a speed boost - which the Dungeon hugely rewards. Edgar?  Above-average speed now.  Eiko?  Faster than Garnet now with a mostly better skillset.  Billy?  Also above average speed.  A whole ton of average speedish characters with broken abilities from Yuri to Purim to Bartz?  Now win most speed-offs.  I can easily see a team built around Tension ruthlessly knocking most battles over.

That's the main problem. A flat 10% doesn't help enough, either. Edgar is still below average speed (97%), Eiko doesn't have autowin abilities under her belt and isn't well suited for blitzing teams (I don't even think her skillset is even noticeably better than Garnet's to boot for dungeon purposes). Purim is still not hugely problematic to outspeed, and she will be in huge problems when she is. The best blitzer teams will have blistering, blistering speed already, and those won't benefit much from a 10% speed boost - hell, you're far better off picking Tidus or Jane in the dungeon rather than shelling out this sealstone. And there are often multiple stalling teams in a given floor, so two or more of those stack and then you're screwed. It's a sealstone that doesn't benefit much anyone who would try to grab them - the best blitzing doesn't need it, and the slower blitzing will find it's not enough. Make the boost bigger, though, and it'll be potentially broken - not to mention it's a complicated, unstable interp nightmare because you now will have to keep tabs on the rounds passed - and how they're passed (does it count as a round if a fight doesn't cycle through all the characters in a given turn?, etc.). It's unusable as it stands, would be broken if raised to usable standards (and the boost needs to be huge. All potential autolose situations need big boons, or they're just pointless) -and- it heightens the interp problems in any given floor - this is a hugely losing combination when the dungeon is already so research-heavy and interp-laden. The sealstone is just a pretty poor design idea all in all.

[SnowFire]

*shrug* I think that several Sealstones are too good as it stands.  You're pointing out the risks associated with a Sealstone...  which is fine, and a reason to be careful in selecting them, but if Sealstones are theoretically balanced at "roughly equivalent to no sealstone" the downsides have to be significant.  I think you're underselling just how huge a 10% boost in speed is in the Dungeon when so many fights, especially on later floors, come down to speed-offs as to who gets to mess with the other team first.  To balance a boost like that requires a major disadvantage.  Saying that "the best blitzing teams won't need it and the slower ones will find it's not enough" is weird - what about the teams with fast but not blistering speed who become blistering speed thanks to this sealstone?  etc.  You're right that Tidus is better than this Sealstone for ubering your speed, but the Sealstone is free and Tidus is 3.5 points, so he should be better.

I agree that ubering the Tension sealstones makes it unfun as a concept, because then the entire Dungeon comes down to "can you complete it in time" rather than "can you win the fight."  I just think the current bonus is pretty awesome as is.  For example...  the Demi / Wren fight on the MT->ST floor was an example of a potential stalling match.  Looking up Unoriginal's blitzing team...  the combined offense of Orlandu / Nel / FF1 Black Belt / Garnet / Nei should easily overwhelm even Barriered' Wren, OR Nel could ruin his MP, OR Orlandu can break his armor.  That fight takes two turns, one to kill Demi and the next to kill Wren, basically.  I have no idea if Tension would be a good fit here, but it'd certainly make some battles a lot easier with everyone solidly above-average and better speeds.

I'll also be the first one to say that interpretation headaches should be avoided when possible, but eh, I don't think this is THAT great an interpretation deal.  "That fights looks like it takes about 2.5 rounds."  "That fight looks like it's over in one round."  There you go; even fairly major swings in durability respect should only move things around by half a round at worst.  The worst interp splits will be for "one character has healing and defense buffs, can the team OHKO through it?"  If you're a blitzing team, well, see the above example.  The answer better be a conclusive "yes," which shouldn't be TOO hard a deal to arrange (very few full-healers can take 2xPCHP worth of punishment a turn, which should be the bare minimum your team can use).

In summation: I strongly suspect that there exist teams which could mount a fairly scary blitz who are a bit too slow to do so effectively.  Tension would give them the needed speed to blitz floors out.

As for Death, the one-shot ID immunity is just to make things less swingy.  The actual benefit is the reduced cost for the character, of course, so you can have a 12-point team.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

*shrug* I think that several Sealstones are too good as it stands.  You're pointing out the risks associated with a Sealstone...  which is fine, and a reason to be careful in selecting them, but if Sealstones are theoretically balanced at "roughly equivalent to no sealstone" the downsides have to be significant.

I even agree with your sentiment, but that's not how things work psychologically for the players, and that's an issue inherent to the very existence of sealstones. And making a sealstone that nobody would seriously pick because they don't cater for the benefits they'd expect for such a huge disadvantage isn't fixing those - in fact, it only makes those issues worse. The downsides -have- to be significant, but the benefits need to at least theoretically balance out the gutshot, which a 10% speed boost doesn't even begin to cover for instalose after a certain amount of turns. More importantly, this is something that most floors can - and will - hugely and easily exploit, so it makes the dungeon downright unclearable for any team that picks it.

I already noted that the bone tossed doesn't outweight the instalose threat and how to you in PM, and the teams that can do proper blitzing, as said before, won't pick up something that can hinder their ability to permanently crush the dungeon the minute a truly high-profile stalling fight picks up for a 10% boost they likely won't need, because a blitzing team just doesn't work if it's not fast to begin with, and the blitzers that can't do it because they're too slow won't do it particularly effectively with 10%, more speed, because you need to be faster than all but the best, not just a bit faster than average for a truly strong blitz.

Tell me how useful this is for, say, Raquel, who would blitz like a queen if she had speed, but is way too slow to be helped by a 10% boost? How would this help KOS-MOS, who is below average speed even with this bonus? Not to mention that I don't think this boost should be applied to people who don't have a initiative-based stat or are reliant on complete interp calls like SRPGs - but there are people who would think otherwise! Then, you apply those whose initiative is an entire clusterfuck to begin with, like ARPGs! You can see how absurd this is going to get very fast (hello, more interp nightmares! The phase thing isn't the only thing that makes this sealstone convoluted, indeed). You either make them -fast- or you don't, given the radical premises of the sealstone. You can't balance such a crippling downside with a salty bone like that, nobody will find it worth using. You're right that there are plenty of teams that would mount a scary blitz if they weren't too slow. But Tension -won't- let them do it because the boost just isn't enough. And if it was enough, the sealstone would be incredibly stupid. The concept just outsmarts itself. And I feel pretty safe saying that any concept that outsmarts itself is a bad design idea and should be scratched out. I like the sentiment behind it, but the idea is just an outright trainwreck for execution, and it's a trainwreck for something that people either wouldn't bother with or would just abuse the fuck out of - there isn't a middle ground.

For Death... well, couldn't there be more -elegant- ways to give extra points to a character? Feels like a very convoluted way to bring a "hey here's an extra point for your team building". It doesn't feel like you intended it to be a point-raiser stone (more like you added it as an afterthought so it wouldn't be so worthless), but it pans out that way in practice and its downside... I'm not sure if it's enough to warrant an extra point. It's vaguely inelegant as it stands, and I'm not sure how much of a practical boon an extra point can even be, so it'd warrant some extra thought.

[Bardiche]

I'm wondering if the all ST->MT floor can be converted into a Sealstone as well? Prolly more positive for players than dungeon, though?

[Nephrite]

I'm wondering if the all ST->MT floor can be converted into a Sealstone as well? Prolly more positive for players than dungeon, though?

Multitarget - One person on the team's actions all become Multitargetted. However, the damage, healing, chances or stat effects of these effects is reduced by 50%. (For example, Deadly Fingertips has a max 50% chance of hitting all targets.) This applies even if there is only one character.

^^^

It's already a sealstone, bub. Well, in a sense.

Here's a suggestion for the Tension stone:

Overwhelming Power - One character on your team has their damage and all stats increased by 100%. However, after this character takes 5 actions (skipping their turn does not count) they die and cannot be resurrected for the duration of the floor.

[dude789]

50% was just a suggestion! I'd obviously consider the balance before actually implementing it.

I really like the Reverse stone.. I'd probably say "The damage done from healing can never kill a target" to prevent bad things from happening on that and just say that if that person is the only one left you auto-lose.

I will definitely be re-adding Shania, she was in a long time ago and I dumped her. Lucas seems interesting... Elincia too, although there may be some interpretation issues with her but really no more than anyone else like Orlandu or whatever, so yeah.

I like the auto loss if only one person if left. I However, I think that instead of never being able to kill a target, I think that it would be better if it could kill a target if they had less than a certain percentage of HP left. Revival should still work as ID, but can be blocked by ID protection. Also Nina 1 should be immune to this sealstone.

Edit: Overwhelming power seems way to powerful. Choose the right person with lots of MT damage, and they can probably take out whole floors by themselves.