Reincarnation

[adepali]

Here's something I've been working on lately, please give me some feedback:

Characters at 1X with 15+ ranks can reincarnate up to 6 times.

Reincarnated characters:

- Go back to level 1
- Keep their name, clan, gender and alignment.
- Keep their guild and path (all classes, including paladins/dks)
- Keep all their equip, included vaulted equip.
- Keep all their spells, divine powers and pets. Spells can be cast only when their slot becomes available. Divine powers can be cast at level 25.
- Keep all their pets, along with their ranks. Can summon the pets only when they become available.
- Can change race. They also have access to exotic races (with normal class restrictions)
- All their skills are reset to 0, but levelling skills up to the previous max is much faster
- Can pick a single stat per reincarnation to get a permanent +2 bonus
- Gain 2 ranks per reincarnation, but have all their ranks reset and must buy again (including Arctic Legend). Rank progress is lost.
- Gain 20 mv per reincarnation
- Gain HP per reincarnation: tanks +15, thief/scout: +10, casters: +5
- Have spell failures and kill history reset
- Suffer a cumulative penalty to all exp gained per reincarnation. Not sure how much this should be, or if there should be any penalty at all.
- Have all their quests reset, except special quests such as the alchemy one

Thoughts?

[Caine]

My first instinct reading this was no. It sounds too complicated, though I might be misunderstanding the system you are proposing.

It sounds like, with the +2 rank gain from reincarnating, it would be worth delaying reincarnation until at the higher ranks to get the most benefit. Also, limiting characters to 6 race changes per life of their character seems a little arbitrary (but again, i might be misunderstanding the system).

If making ranks easier to acquire, or encouraging players to stick to a few, very strong characters instead of many decently strong ones is the goal here, I would propose a simpler system wih some ideas I have seen tossed around here before:

- Remove or increase the rank cap, and make ranks slightly easier to gain.
- Add a vendor or option somewhere (maybe the rank merchant) to pay coins to switch race.

As it is right now, almost nobody is going to buy a damage shield rank for 30rp. If you are a tank, it is basically out of the question, because you are going to need to spend at least 4 on legend and 15 on steelskin, leaving you with 31rp at most, and if you get a shield, you won't be able to get any legend ranks. In this new system, people might actually be able to make use of the shield ranks.

This could also work decently well at higher ranks since they are already inherently harder to obtain, which kind of goes in line with your idea of making subsequent reincarnations more challenging xp-wise.

Thoughts welcome.

[Tajs]

Interesting!! :)

I'd go for it

PS: Bring back +skills rank (other than legend ranks)

[Chisul]

This sounds awesome.

Bring on the max con gully dwarf barbarians with 90 bonus H. Can you imagine the destruction a six reincarnated mountain scout would cause?

I'm assuming you get to keep instincts once they are gained?

Sounds super cool.

[blackmagus]

Really interesting concept, somewhat similar to the old multi-classing. Well thought out.

[Wendell]

Commenting strictly on the reincarnation post, I dig it. My one concern would be, would the length of the wipe be increased as well?

[Malthros]

The idea sounds cool.  Some thoughts (some already mentioned):
- XP penalty could be fine but how would this work?  Reduce their max xp cap per level, a flat X% reduction per reincarnation, ore boost the XP they need to level rather than reducing the amount gained...etc.  I don't think an XP penalty's necessary but I can see where the idea's coming from.  I imagine a 6th reincarnation neutral character could hit legend before 1x though with that penalty.
- Reincarnations can reroll like normal I assume?  If not will they just have the max stats (+2 to selected ones) for their classes important attributes so that a person isn't at the mercy of RNG?
- changing race will likely force people to change alignment unless you only let them pick a race for their current align (IE:  someone leveled as a lawful good cleric and can't reincarnate as a theiwar).
- When you say 2 ranks do you mean RP or that they'd start at rank 2?  The former's amazing, the latter's a minor convenience.  If it's the latter give a rank xp gain bonus instead so the more you reincarnate the slower you level but the faster you rank.
- Have the score sheet include a line saying what bonus stat you picked for your reincarnation(s).
- Allow later reincarnations, or even just the final one, to pick something other than stats.  Health, Concentration, hitroll, damroll..etc.
- Slightly boost the skill level limit on each reincarnation?  So a warrior who reincarnated X times would have a better bash at superb than someone who just hit 30 for the first time.

e:
- Will you have to reroll your stats if you don't pick a new race or do will it just set you back to level 1 as-is?

[Tajs]

Should consider the xp penalty for neutrals, it's already quite a bit slower to xp neutrals compared to good/evil. Maybe lower penalty for neutrals?

[Jorake]

I guess I don't quite understand what is the point of this. I do appreciate the effort certainly. But it seems like the only gain is to make a new race? or to gain a few hps? Will this raise the amount of ranks we can get? Or.. Maybe i'm missing something! So you get +2 ranks for each reincarnation? So from 50 to 52 to 54 etc? Sounds like a crazy grind.

[blackmagus]

You keep your prior progress, get additional stats and a small amount of +hp. It's not bad.

[Gnua]

Here's something I've been working on lately, please give me some feedback:
- Keep their name, clan, gender and alignment
- Gain 2 ranks per reincarnation, but have all their ranks reset and must buy again (including Arctic Legend). Rank Thoughts?

Overall a great idea.  given how easy it is to go from 1-3 compared to 41-43, then it seems everyone would need to delay most of their reincarnations until rank 40.  Perhaps we could have reincarnation points which could be spent on stuff like +v, imm_charm, imm_fear, auto_light, imm_blind, nightvision, detect invis.  might be nice to allow gender change.  after all it is 2019 and there seems to be no point in playing a male in arctic.  i've seen half a dozen pieces of female-only gear (much of it pretty nice) and no male-only gear. 

the skill retraining sounds like a major deterrent to reincarnating.  some skills are brutal to train and never get used after they get trained.  maybe we could purge the skills that people do not use after they train them.  solo skill training is detested and only endured because it opens up legendary.  the thought of voluntarily losing legendary and having to reskill seems like a bitter pill to swallow.  perhaps we could keep the legendary rank but lose all others upon reincarnation?  Or maybe the reincarnation process could be merged with the legendary process so that you reincarnate upon legendary (and become a level 1 legendary with a race/gender of your choice)

On second thought, if the skill training bonus is good enough, people might choose to reincarnate before legendary simply to speed up skilling. the race change makes me hopeful that i will get to play a kender paladin.  The hit point bonus concerns me as the power creep would bring the need to rebalance the mobs (like it did for legend and steelskin ranks).  quality of life such as +v, det invis, fly, det poison, det good, light, det evil, skill training bonus wont create power creep.  part of the reason people dont buy these ranks is because they compete with ranks that influence the outcome of a big fight. (steelskin, immblind, imm silence, nocharm, spellsaves, mindshield, imm heat, imm gas)

So to sum up, I really like the idea and propose two modifications:  reincarnation points instead of rank increase, allow people to keep the "turn your character into a legendary" rank upon reincarnation.

[Jorake]

So if I am rank 32 when i reincarnate, I then keep rank 32 but all my rank progress etc is reset and I have to buy all my ranks over again? My main question for that is; if I am level 1 and rank 32. Does ranking then become easier for lower levels?

[Malthros]

I read it as "you reincarnated at rank 32, you're now level 1 rank 1 (with 2 bonus RP?) and have to build back up from there.  Though it also means you're basically penalized for not reincarnating as soon as you're 1x so hopefully I'm wrong. 

Ideally it'd be "you reincarnated at rank X, you're level 1 and rank X with X+2 RP to spend" because then there's no penalty for reincarnating now or later.  It'd also mean a fully 6x reincarnated character could have 62rp if they hit rank 50 after their 6th reincarnation and if 62rp can result in a broken build of some kind that person earned it.

[Gnua]

Ideally it'd be "you reincarnated at rank X, you're level 1 and rank X with X+2 RP to spend" because then there's no penalty for reincarnating now or later.  It'd also mean a fully 6x reincarnated character could have 62rp if they hit rank 50 after their 6th reincarnation and if 62rp can result in a broken build of some kind that person earned it.

That sounds feasible if it actually works that way (much better than my idea of reincarnation points).  It could also fill out the void between level 28 and rank 25 when you have nothing to lookforward to and are seriously considering quitting arctic.  If you are 1x, rank 16 have your critical spells filled, you could then drop to level 1 and exotic yourself.  I'm still really keen on the reincarnation process not taking away the "arctic legendary" rank upon reincarnation.  Given the choice between my spellbook and the arctic legendary rank, i'd keep the legendary rank

[adepali]

Thank you for your feedback.
This is the current helpfile for my work in progress. Of course anything in here can change either before reincarnation becomes available or during playtesting.

REINCARNATION

Characters who have reached a high level of power can chose to reincarnate
and restart their life at level 1. To reincarnate, a character:

* Must be at the very end of level 30.
* Must have at least 15 ranks.

Reincarnated characters retain their name, gender, guild and alignment, but
can chose a new race, including exotic races. The new race must satisfy all
the normal restrictions of their guild and alignment. They also retain all
their money, equipment and pets; the pets themselves keep all their ranks.

Mages will retain their robe color, and will not need to retake the Test of
High Sorcery. Scouts, Paladins and Dark Knights will retain their path. All
characters will retain any progress towards quests.

Each character can reincarnate up to 6 times. With each reincarnation,
characters gain the following permanent bonuses:

* +2 bonus to a stat of their choice
* -1 bonus to SAVING_SPELL
* 2 ranks.
* 5-15 hit points, depending on their guild
* 20 movement points

Reincarnated characters have their skill points reset, and will need to
retrain them. Some memory of their previous expertise remains, so characters
will find that retraining skills will be much faster.

Spells, instincts and divine powers are a core part of a character's soul;
reincarnated characters will retain all their magical powers, but will need
to level up before they can use them.

All ranks, including Arctic Legend, will be reset and will need to be purchased
again. Legendary effects, skills and spells will be removed.

Each reincarnation will impose a penalty to all experience gained, so
characters will find it progressively harder to level.

Clarifications:

• The bonus ranks gained through reincarnation don't count towards the normal rank exp calculation or the normal rank cap.
• Reseting ranks, especially legendary ranks, seems to be the biggest complaint. I'm leaning towards keeping standard ranks and reseting legendary ones, but this is still open to debate.