Life after Slackers

[Zed-F]

Probably not possible if we are sticking with a no-twink team. I think that's something we'd be reluctant to change, but it might be grist for another team.

[Occhidiangela]

1. Mercs staying dead I like.
2. Sorry to see that the wrangle over the rules in our initial offering may have left a lingering odor.
3. The All Paladin concept can of course be scratched. Maybe I was trying to combine too many things into one: Gems, All Paladin, Severn Samurai.
4. Sorry to see the Gem/Color theme not attractive.

Still, there is potential for a good team in this . . .

Occhi

[ShadowHM]

Lurking in your thread, the thought occurred to me that it might be cool actually to emphasize mercs.

- Sirian

And, from that thought, another notion jumped to mind.

A group of players who share clothing with their mercenaries: They can only equip items that the mercenary cannot - i.e. only amulets, rings, gloves, boots and belts. Hence, the mercenary would be the primary killer and the character would develop support skills for the mercenary.

KoP made an amazon some time ago who equipped only what her rogue mercenary could not, and developed only her passive skill tree. IIRC, she was still quite viable.

A Druid could do the same, with Summoning skills.

A Paladin could do that with any mercenary, and develop the aura that suited the mercenary. An Act 3 mercenary supported by conviction comes to mind...

A Necromancer with only curses could support any form of mercenary rather well.

A Warcry barbarian could suport his brother barbarian rather well.

And a Shadow skills Assassin could support a Rogue mercenary too.

Without limits on skill point spending, a team like that probably would do all too well.

[Zed-F]

1. Mercs staying dead I like.
2. Sorry to see that the wrangle over the rules in our initial offering may have left a lingering odor.
3. The All Paladin concept can of course be scratched. Maybe I was trying to combine too many things into one: Gems, All Paladin, Severn Samurai.
4. Sorry to see the Gem/Color theme not attractive.

Still, there is potential for a good team in this . . .
Occhi

1.
2. Not really. I just like a clean, simple ruleset that's easy for everyone to remember. That's how I did it for Slackers, and it worked well there. I am not a fan of the print-out-the-rules style of variant.
3. I actually would prefer all paladin, but am willing to make concessions if people really want to play something else.
4. It's not so much that it's unattractive per se. I just think that combined with the other rules, it gets to be too much. Some things had to give, and I deemed that to be less core to the theme than some of the other restrictions.

I think you did a great job on the original variant and am not trying to impugn your effort in any way. I just tend to be of the opinion that for team variants especially, KISS should be the order of the day.

[Zed-F]

And, from that thought, another notion jumped to mind.

A group of players who share clothing with their mercenaries: They can only equip items that the mercenary cannot - i.e. only amulets, rings, gloves, boots and belts. Hence, the mercenary would be the primary killer and the character would develop support skills for the mercenary.

KoP made an amazon some time ago who equipped only what her rogue mercenary could not, and developed only her passive skill tree. IIRC, she was still quite viable.

A Druid could do the same, with Summoning skills.

A Paladin could do that with any mercenary, and develop the aura that suited the mercenary. An Act 3 mercenary supported by conviction comes to mind...

A Necromancer with only curses could support any form of mercenary rather well.

A Warcry barbarian could suport his brother barbarian rather well.

And a Shadow skills Assassin could support a Rogue mercenary too.

Without limits on skill point spending, a team like that probably would do all too well.

Something like this maybe:

Shattered Souls
---------------
A group of adventurers meet and form a pact to drive evil from the face of Sanctuary. However, little do they realize that the Prime Evils have left an insidious curse behind for any who would oppose them to contend with. As a result of gaining control of their soulstones, they have learned the ability to shatter the souls of others into fragments. This takes a great deal of effort and preparation, but there is no way to magically counter the effect, as the curse strikes at the very root of the self. One by one, they mysteriously begin to suffer from the curse, even as they pursue the Prime Evils to a final confrontation...

Rules:
- Each character must have a mercenary soulmate as described below as soon as possible. Until the soulmate can be gained, that character may not have a mercenary.
Amazon - Rogue Merc
Assassin - Rogue Merc
Barbarian - Barb Merc
Druid - Barb Merc
Necromancer - Desert Merc
Paladin - Desert Merc
Sorceress - Iron Wolf Merc

- Once a character has a mercenary, that character may equip items only in those slots a mercenary does not have occupied. Thus no character with a mercenary can have a hat, weapon, shield, or armour equipped.
- The player may not use a skill his soulmate has access to.
- The job of the character is to protect his soulmate at all costs. He can protect his soulmate by acting as a shield, summoning minions, or casting buffs/debuffs on the party and the monsters.
- To preserve the role of the mercenaries as the true damage-dealing component of the team, no summonable minion may be taken at higher than slvl 5+.

-----

Well, it's a start. I think Shadow is correct that this would be considerably easier than the simplified 7 Samurai variant described above. There are still lots of skills available that would turn the mercs into killing machines, and/or keep the party quite safe from retaliation for the most part. Moreover, most of them don't require a huge investment to be effective. Consider a pair of massive vit tanks (druid and barb) in front with stunning skills, an angel/medic paladin, a necromancer with curses and bone prison, an enchantress, lots of disposable meatshields... there's a surfeit of easy ways to focus on survivability and let the mercs do the actual killing. It might be slow at times, but the outcome seems pretty certain. Many of those skills don't even really need a large skill point investment to be of great use -- several are plenty effective at slvl 1.

One way to limit it would be to play it as all-of-a-class, for instance play it as all Sorcies and Iron Wolves, as Sirian envisioned, with the added restriction of no doubling up. Sorcies haven't got too many support-type skills, and their best one (enchant) wouldn't be much use for Iron Wolves. But I'm not sure how that would go as a game experience. It might work better with a different class.

[Sirian]

Well that's why I suggested all Iron Wolves. Those are not "killing machines" under any circumstance. I was wondering what it would be like trying to have your inferno-breathing merc carrying you along.

The point was not "mercs" but specifically "act three mercs".

- Sirian

[ShadowHM]

The point was not "mercs" but specifically "act three mercs".

- Sirian

Aww, heck

And I thought the point was coming up with viable but oddball team variants - a brainstorming exercise, with a little humour thrown in on the side.

[Occhidiangela]

Well that's why I suggested all Iron Wolves. Those are not "killing machines" under any circumstance. I was wondering what it would be like trying to have your inferno-breathing merc carrying you along.

The point was not "mercs" but specifically "act three mercs".

- Sirian

From your kernel of an idea, I see potential for "The Dysfunctional Marriage," merc heavy teams, but since we cant get a perfect man woman match, maybe we call them "The Odd Couple." Merc supported by a resentful spouse, partner, room mate, Oscar, Felix, etc.

Assassins are innately anti mages. Thus, the Assassins has to hire an Iron Wolf.

Amazons are strong female warriors, nascent feminists even? Yes, feminists too can have large breasts. But I digress. Zons must hire and support a he man merc: a Barbarian.

No Sorceresses . . . unless she supports an act II merc with an off beat aura like . . . Thorns? He is all about physical combat, a dirty, money grubbing legionaire merc. She is all about sophisitication . . . brain not getting the right flavor of irony in this one . . .

Paladin? Not sure. Maybe he goes undead hunter and teams up with a Barbarian who does all physical damage, or a rogue.

Druid? Must take a rogue. He is a summoner, mostly. A hunter with arrows going after animals. Dysfunctional (Marie Matlin James Carvelle theme?)

Necromancer. He has so many minions, not sure he fits into this theme. Or, he could be an arty mage with a Cold Iron Wolf using Cold? Dysfunctional Odd Couple, Oscar and Felix style.

Anyway, I doubt seven folks would be able to make a team event, so only a few of these pairings might need to be matched.

Theme, once again is Odd Couples.

[Occhidiangela]

Something like this maybe:

Shattered Souls
---------------
A group of adventurers meet and form a pact to drive evil from the face of Sanctuary. However, little do they realize that the Prime Evils have left an insidious curse behind for any who would oppose them to contend with. As a result of gaining control of their soulstones, they have learned the ability to shatter the souls of others into fragments. This takes a great deal of effort and preparation, but there is no way to magically counter the effect, as the curse strikes at the very root of the self. One by one, they mysteriously begin to suffer from the curse, even as they pursue the Prime Evils to a final confrontation...

Rules:
- Each character must have a mercenary soulmate as described below as soon as possible. Until the soulmate can be gained, that character may not have a mercenary.
Amazon - Rogue Merc
Assassin - Rogue Merc
Barbarian - Barb Merc
Druid - Barb Merc
Necromancer - Desert Merc
Paladin - Desert Merc
Sorceress - Iron Wolf Merc

- Once a character has a mercenary, that character may equip items only in those slots a mercenary does not have occupied. Thus no character with a mercenary can have a hat, weapon, shield, or armour equipped.

I am with you so far. While the only shield preclusion would technically be the Iron Wolf's soul mate, since the others use two handed weapons, I understand that the ideas is "both hands of the merc are busy, so char cannot have busy hands, them hands is needed for support."

- The player may not use a skill his soulmate has access to.

- The job of the character is to protect his soulmate at all costs. He can protect his soulmate by acting as a shield, summoning minions, or casting buffs/debuffs on the party and the monsters.

This last bit takes us back to shields, doesn't it? However, if the theme is "My body is your shield" then I get it. Hmmm, name of Character would be I_MeatShield.

- To preserve the role of the mercenaries as the true damage-dealing component of the team, no summonable minion may be taken at higher than slvl 5+.

Indeed. The Merc as Diva.

-----

Well, it's a start. I think Shadow is correct that this would be considerably easier than the simplified 7 Samurai variant described above. There are still lots of skills available that would turn the mercs into killing machines, and/or keep the party quite safe from retaliation for the most part. Moreover, most of them don't require a huge investment to be effective. Consider a pair of massive vit tanks (druid and barb) in front with stunning skills, an angel/medic paladin, a necromancer with curses and bone prison, an enchantress, lots of disposable meatshields... there's a surfeit of easy ways to focus on survivability and let the mercs do the actual killing. It might be slow at times, but the outcome seems pretty certain. Many of those skills don't even really need a large skill point investment to be of great use -- several are plenty effective at slvl 1.

One point wonders, maybe even forcing incredibly useless skills to be maxed? Not sure.

Hi, I am Hoffa, the Queen of Power Strike.
Nice to meet you, I am Dentyn, King of Teeth.

One way to limit it would be to play it as all-of-a-class, for instance play it as all Sorcies and Iron Wolves, as Sirian envisioned, with the added restriction of no doubling up. Sorcies haven't got too many support-type skills, and their best one (enchant) wouldn't be much use for Iron Wolves. But I'm not sure how that would go as a game experience. It might work better with a different class.

All of a class with Iron Wolves? It don't ring my bell, but could be of some interest. Hmmm, per my Odd Couple suggestion in the other post, take your excellent outline and perhaps refine it with Assassins, Amazons, and Sorc: Why not all of a gender: The Stepford Wives Variant?

All Sorcie Iron Wolves. Go blind watching that light show. Shades of the EST. Methinks Sirian is obsessed with Sorceresses, really he is! (So says rogue obsessed person, eh? ) If he ever meets a girl named Ember . . . I will start buying rice, a case of Asti Spumante, and looking for a good band for the wedding.

*Ducks.*

Occhi

[Zed-F]

We have a lot of possibilities, so it's time to start winnowing a bit. Of course, there is still room to toss some more suggestions into the ring, but at some point we will have to pick one of these to play, so I'd like to at least get a start at zeroing in on that one.

We need to know who is going to participate in order to know whose votes to tally. And then we need to know what those votes are. I think the team will want to continue to run on weekends at 8:30 EST. Our default day is currently Saturday but that has been known to shift to Fri or Sun from time to time. I have been assuming that the current Slackers rotation would participate (Shadow, CelticHound, Hawkmoon, Shishak, and myself) but others could join if so inclined and can make it at that time. If so, please speak up now! I'd particularily like to hear from CH, Hawk, and Shishak since they haven't said anything yet in forum.

So far we have mentioned as possibles:
1. BNx
2. Ultraslackers (slackers following the revised rules)
3. 7 Samurai, simplified
4. Synergizers
5. "Merc-oriented", exact format TBD. Several flavours to choose from.

My own thoughts so far:
(1) I'd be ok with, though I got the impression at the end of last game that not everyone was keen on it. Some are also doing this on Tuesdays already.
(2) This would be significantly harder than the previous iteration and would play somewhat differently (esp. without mercs) but it's still largely what we just did, so while I'd be ok with it, I'm expecting it's a no-go.
( 3 ) Seems like it could be an interesting but challenging ride. Expect lots of deaths and a sharp cutoff between situations we can handle easily, and situations where we get our butts handed to us, assuming we stick as closely to an all-pally team as possible. (The more classes we have, the more safety options are available.) Slackers were never forced to retreat in disarray; this group could be. I like this one best so far.
(4) Would have to toss out team pure, which I would prefer to avoid. Not really comfortable with this one.
(5) Would depend on what it was. Still, builds where the focus of the build is on supporting the merc are not really that uncommon -- in fact, many builds depend on the merc for killing power through most of Normal and even into Nightmare. My gut reaction is lukewarm on this one.